


It's a Treetop View Through Dirty Windows

by getyouwhateverthepayne



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Actor Louis, Actor Zayn, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Musician Harry, Pining Niall, annoying liam, literally all i am capable of writing is awkwardness and i think that really says something about me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:36:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getyouwhateverthepayne/pseuds/getyouwhateverthepayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry's a musician who dropped out of Cambridge and is young and smart and Niall's an engineer student who meets him when he's drunk and feelings and confusion and misunderstandings and fluff just might happen</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this since June and I never posted it because I don't like posting stuff before I know exactly what the ending is going to be but I've decided to follow Natasha Bedingfield's advice and release my inhibitions bc I've realized I never posT ANYTHING SO HERE IT IS
> 
> I hope you like it agH
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.getyouwhateverthepayne.tumblr.com)

Jesus Christ.

Niall stumbles through the door of the small pub, holding onto the frame and trying to let his eyes adjust to the dim yellow lighting. He squeezes his eyes shut at the noise of conversations and music and laughter -- fuck, it’s so loud and pounding that he might just be having war flashbacks -- wait, shit, that was his brother who was in the army, Niall’s just a uni student -- fuck, what? -- and he trips over his shoes and lands with his palms on a small round table.

“Sorry,” he slurs, trying and failing to readjust the ketchup and sugar packets that have now spilled all over the table.

The couple sitting there -- he can’t really get a good look at their faces before he’s stumbling off to the right again -- look a bit annoyed, and he thinks he’s hearing something that sounds like “Asshole!” when he falls into a booth seat and drops his head into his hands.

His entire brain is slowly crashing to the beat of the live drums. The twangy guitar is running straight through his head like -- Jesus, he doesn’t know, he just needs to sleep. Why is he here again? And where the fuck is his bed?

Oh right, across the entire freaking city. What…

There’s clapping now, a couple whoops, whistles, and he thinks he might just kill something. (That is, if his eyes weren’t closed and his limbs weren’t about as useless as…as…he doesn’t fucking know. Just that right now he’s not exactly in the state to throw a punch without throwing himself to the ground from the momentum.)

Because he’s drunk. Quite drunk. And he’s still thinking about it, why he started drinking, which really isn’t that good because he’d only went out and gotten drunk in the first place to forget about it. It’s so stupid. It’s just a grade. But it’s also Niall, so it’s a little bit more important to him than he’d like to admit.

He knows he could have brought Lou along, or could have told him where he was going, or what was bothering him, but he also knows that boy would drop everything for him and he can’t deal with any sort of pity right now. Because it’s so stupid. (Also he had the half-hope that he’d maybe finally meet someone while he was out, which would be impossible with his heart-breaker best friend by his side, or do something really great and adventurous and awesome and just get out of his crappy dorm for once and get away from that annoying, what’s-wrong-tell-me-I’m-majoring-in-psychology roommate Liam of his, who always tries to do stupid mind experiments on him without telling him. Damn him.)

And while he’s at it, damn Mr. Jacobs and damn that teacher’s obsessive need for proper grammar on final papers, and you know what, damn the entire English department, too.

“Thank you,” comes a low, throaty voice through the speakers. Niall thinks he might seriously die from the pain it’s causing his poor head. From the way it’s nearly shaking the empty glass in front of him from its sheer volume.

(But he still can’t help but peek up a little to see the owner of that voice because, honestly, if he wasn’t this drunk, that voice would be hot. Or maybe it’s hot because he’s drunk. Either way.)

“Alright, this is a new one now,” says the voice. His blurred vision latches onto a tall guy in a plaid shirt, standing up on a makeshift stage across from the bar. “I don’t think we’ve played it before…actually, Josh, have we done it yet?”

Niall sees someone sitting behind him, shaking his head. The guy wearing the plaid, who Niall’s just noticed is -- he’s going dizzy again -- is holding a guitar, maybe, adjusts the strings. Niall slumps against the back of the booth and tries to focus on plaid-shirt-person so he doesn’t fall over onto the floor. He'll be his guardian angel for the rest of the night. Keep him upright. Because he thinks he knows this pub and he thinks he knows its floor from various other drunken escapades that ended with him passing out with his friends, and he thinks he remembers this floor in particular as being especially painful.

“It’s called Don’t Let Me Go,” says plaid-shirt-person, speaking into the completely unnecessary microphone. It's so loud, Jesus Christ. “A bit personal, but, well. Here we go.” The guy looks back at the…oh, the drummer, isn’t he?…and nods his head to start the beat. “One, two, three, four…”

The slow music starts, and after a few seconds, Niall finds himself blinking back a wave of sleepiness. He starts swaying in his seat, and for some reason the song -- well, maybe that voice, what a great guardian angel he turned out to be -- is helping him.

So the floor comes up to reach his face a lot faster than he’d expected.

And he finds that it’s actually not that hard. At least if you’re already unconscious when you hit it.

He’s being prodded awake what he thinks is only a few seconds later, but when he opens his eyes, he finds he’s slumped over in another booth with his head sideways against the wall, his forehead pressed against a framed newspaper clipping so that it hangs crooked. He feels the presence of someone sitting across from him, watching him with an unblinking gaze.

He thinks he might still be a little bit drunk. A little bit very drunk, fine. Everything is still quite blurry and colorful. A bit quieter, though, the music gone and the conversations fewer, but the person across from him still looks quite a bit like a shapeless blob, and Niall can feel his eyes criss-crossing, which is funny. He giggles a bit pointlessly and slumps back against the wall.

“All right there, mate?”

The guy across from him. Right, there’s a guy sitting across from him. He actually tries to focus his eyes now, because isn’t that voice a bit familiar? A little bit. “Superb,” he says, grinning lazily, now swaying a little too far to the left and nearly landing on the leather booth seat before a hand catches him.

“A bit too much to drink, then?” says the voice casually. It’s a bit hard to hear because it’s so low, but Niall can tell it’s amused. “Should probably get some water in you.”

“Dunno…what you’re talking about,” he bumbles. “Fit as a…fit as a fiddle.” Niall giggles again.

The guy sitting across from him rolls his eyes and mumbles something about it being your brain cells, not mine, but Niall doesn’t really notice in the slightest. He’s too busy giggling.

“You’ve got quite a grip, there,” Niall slurs, nodding to the large hand that’s still clasped gently around his bicep. The hand retracts quickly, and Niall follows its path to its owner. And that’s when he sees plaid, that plaid flannel shirt that’s oversized and only half buttoned up. A couple of small, scribbly tattoos are peeking out behind the loose fabric. “Oh, you’re the one with the thing!” he says, blinking his eyes wide. He’s finally conscious enough to make out swooped back chocolate hair and tanned skin and some really soft, pink lips and a hard stare.

“Sorry?”

“The thing…the, the guitar! That was you,” he explains. “Up on stage. Why aren’t you singing?”

The guy in plaid smiles big and crooked and leans back against the booth seat. “Set was over an hour ago. It’s closing time, bro.” He nods to the drummer, starting to pack up his equipment by the stage, and to the barmaid who’s wiping down the counters. Only a few stragglers are left in the place. The boy takes a swig from a bottle of beer that Niall hadn’t noticed was even there and says, “Just thought I’d wake you up before we all left.”

The way those full pink lips fit around the rim of the glass bottle is oddly entrancing and very very interest-piquing to Niall, and it results in him sloppily resting his elbows on the table, leaning forward, and saying, “Oh, you did, did you?” and putting a hand under his chin. “What I’d give for you to be waking me up in the morning, sunshine.” A dopey smile spreads across his face and completely undercuts his attempted bedroom eyes.

The guy in plaid stiffens. “Hm,” he says, with a somewhat amused smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as he subtly avoids Niall’s lunge across the table toward his lips. He checks Niall over and soon frowns at the wrinkled clothes and slight stench of alcohol. “Mate, you have a place to stay tonight?”

Niall takes the rejection lightly and instead starts toying with the guy’s leather bracelets. The hand doesn’t entirely pull away, which makes Niall happy, is a good sign. “I dunno,” he says lazily, looking up from under his lashes. “Maybe, maybe not…”

He thinks for a minute or two about how far it is to his dorm from here -- pretty damn far, actually -- and checks his pockets for his wallet. Finally finding it in his back pocket and opening it with some difficulty (as he doesn’t quite have his hand-eye coordination under control), he finds only three dollars and a receipt from the book store for his school books from, like, forever ago. And he left his Underground ticket under his bed. Well.

As he slowly processes this unfortunate information, the plaid-shirt-person across from him courteously tries not to laugh. When Niall eventually truly realizes he doesn’t actually have enough for a cab after all, his mouth drops open and he stares dumbly into the empty abyss that is his wallet. Niall looks up to see the guy now twisting his lip.

Obviously he’s seeing just as well as Niall what’s in his empty abyss. Or not in it. Because there’s nothing. There is nothing in his empty abyss. Hence the empty abyss part.

There’s a few seconds’ hesitation before the boy’s resolve (almost) breaks. “Do you want to sta-…erm, I mean, I can pay for a cab…?”

“No, no, no,” Niall brushes him off. “I can walk. I’ll walk, I wanna walk, walking,” why does he keep saying walk, “I’ll walk, but um, thank you, attractive person.”

“You sure?” Attractive Person (who was previously plaid-shirt-person but is now officially Attractive Person because Niall’s just decided it’s a better and definitely more accurate nickname) reaches into his own wallet and pulls out a very non-helpful psychiatrist card -- is he trying to say something? -- and fifty cents. “Crap,” Niall hears the boy mumble to himself.

Niall giggles. “Both broke,” he laughs, sliding his finger under the strap of the boy’s bracelet and tracing patterns along the inside of the boy’s wrist. He thinks he partly knows on some level that he’d never get away with this if he wasn’t this drunk, so he’s definitely taking full advantage of the situation. “Dunno what we’ll do…” he teases.

The guy laughs, shaking his head. And then finally, a little reluctantly, he changes his original question. “Do you…er, do you want a place to stay tonight?”

Gah, yes! Niall feels a flurry of anticipation even though he knows Attractive Person is just being nice and not at all hitting on him, but he still finds himself nodding his head and oops, leaning forward and planting a sloppy kiss on those lips as a thank you. Wow, they’re soft. Until he feels gentle hands on his chin, pushing him away.

“I’m just upstairs,” says Attractive Person, sounding slightly charmed and flustered.

The second he had closed his eyes for the kiss, though, Niall’s anticipation had ebbed quickly into a overpowering need for sleep again, so he’s already falling back against the booth and not really following the conversation anymore. He blinks open his eyes, a little cross-eyed, and his vision blurs, the attractive face of the boy starting to double. He giggles and hiccups.

Another wave of sleep washes over him, and he hears a half-amused sigh.

The last thing he feels is two strong arms picking him up as he wraps his arms blindly around a neck, nuzzling his head into a warm chest. And then he’s out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S SNOWING I'M SO FREAKIN EXCITED OH MY GOodness ok ok I read this too many times so I don't know if it's any good anymore and I also don't know if I'm supposed to put a summary for every chapter or not sorry ok I'll stop ohmg 
> 
> Also I'm just posting this chapter today because I wanted to and it was done but it will most likely (definitely) not be daily updates or anything ok I'm sorry I am dumb
> 
> enjOY!

Throbbing.

Oh, god.

Bright light, already visible through his closed eyelids.

He wishes he hadn’t woken up.

If it’s possible, this may actually be worse than that Ibiza trip in freshman year. At least there it had been beaches and palm trees and warmth outside. Here, all there is is muddy spring.

Dealing with goddamn Liam -- he’s supposed to help him determine the correlation between male sexual aggression and performance in video games...or something -- is going to especially suck today. Niall knows it’s going to somehow come with a wonderful assortment of nagging questions about his sex life and he doesn’t know how he knows it’s going to happen, but it’s Liam he’s talking about here. Nagging is his forte.

He’s probably sitting on his own bed across the room right now and just waiting for Niall to open his eyes.

Determinedly keeping his eyes _shut,_ the exhausted boy rolls over in his (way too comfortable) bed and groans.

And then Niall bolts upright quickly, perplexity etched all over his sticky, pale face.

Because his uni bed is definitely not supposed to be this comfortable.

His eyes -- which had still stayed instinctively closed because of all that fucking bright light -- spring open.

And what the fuck?

He’s in a very small room, which is okay, that’s normal. What’s not normal is the big bed he’s sitting up in, with clean white sheets, shoved diagonally into a corner of white wood-paneled walls that should totally be concrete blocks with Liam’s Kate Upton poster on. And there’s a closed door in front of him and a window sort of to his left with no curtains, set into a crumbling brick wall with grayish white mortar that should definitely be covered in a periodic table and a diagram of the human brain. A big old trunk is sitting beneath it, gray and brown and dulled with copper edges, and, no, that shouldn’t be there, that should be his football gear and Liam’s nightstand.

Instead there’s a white wicker nightstand next to him with a little teal lamp that isn’t meant to be there either and a card poking out of a wallet and a set of keys and a cup of pens.

A tall, fake fern is in the corner on his right and a few rows of small lined up photographs are on the walls and a whole crap load of books are stuffed onto about a thousand makeshift floating shelves. A guitar sits in the corner.

Yeah. This is definitely not his uni room.

Scrambling as quickly out of bed as he can, his unsteady feet land on the floor and on top of some clothes -- he looks down and sees it’s underwear: lovely -- and he drags his hands through his knotted hair and runs around a bit pointlessly to look for his phone to call for help, or something.

He’s halfway across the room and about to check inside the trunk when he thinks he hears some movement outside the door.

 _Arm himself, he needs to arm himself, he’s been kidnapped, he’s about to die, where are his clothes, shit?_ He’s only in his boxers and lunging for the fern as a last resort when the door squeaks open.

“Stay away from me!” he yells, brandishing the plant wildly and accomplishing nothing but tickling his kidnapper’s nose a little with its leaves.

A hand gently knocks the plant away, and it’s coupled with a low laugh. "Oh, you're awake." Niall’s just about had it.

“Where am I?” he asks angrily, backing up and tripping against the edge of the bed, looking around for something else to arm himself with.

“I let you crash here,” says the supposed kidnapper. “Last night,” he clarifies.

Niall finally looks up, and…oh.

It’s Attractive Person. That much he remembers. That much he didn’t get wrong in his drunken whirlwind last night. Very Attractive Person who is currently looking at him with sleepy morning eyes. Right.

“S’pose you were too drunk to remember,” he says, leaning against the door. “S’all right.”

Niall feels a crimson burn on his cheeks, suddenly very conscious of the fact that he’s wearing nothing but his pants (and that he hasn’t exactly seen the sun in a while, and what even was the gym, really –)

“Your clothes are in the bedside drawer,” the boy tells him, reading his mind. Running a hand through fluffy and tousled curls, a ring glints silver in the light from the window and makes Niall blink. “But there’s a couple shirts in the trunk you can borrow. And aspirin, in the kitchen. Sorry.”

And then he leaves and shuts the door behind him gently, and Niall kind of wonders what he was apologizing for before deciding that it doesn’t really matter and that he better put some clothes on.

Dressing quickly, he rifles through the drawer and stuffs his phone and his wallet and cash -- all three dollars of it -- into his jeans pocket.

He grimaces at the slight stench of booze that has remained on his clothes and starts to feel a bit sorry for the attractive boy, as he had obviously been the one to undress him. They seriously reek.

Finally, after a couple whiffs and retches, he gives in and pulls off his own shirt and reaches for one of the spares.

It’s about five minutes later when he sneaks out of the bedroom. He looks around furtively, deciding he ought to make a quick and as-non-embarrassing-as-possible getaway, and stuffs his clothes haphazardly under his arm, his small frame draped in a loose shirt. (He’d do something with the borrowed clothes later, return them somehow, but he just needs to get out now before he embarrasses himself _further –)_

And then there’s some surprised laughter a bit behind him and to his left, and he spins around quickly to see some guy who isn’t the plaid guy sitting in a white shirt and briefs and eating cereal at a small, round kitchen table by the window.

Shit. He jumps and nearly drops his clothes.

“So you’re the ruckus Harry brought home last night?” says the guy, his caramel eyes dancing as he scoops up another spoonful of what looks like Cheerios. “Sure does know how to pick ‘em. He tell you to put on his clothes? Genius, that boy.”

Niall stares at him, quite flustered, his head throbbing even worse because the guy’s dark hair is glinting white in the sunlight and everything is fucking glinting in this flat and hurting his head and they are seriously trying to kill him. And also what kind of conditioner does that boy use to get that kind of shine this early in the morning, Jesus.

“Sorry,” Niall mutters, biting his lip. “I didn’t mean to be a, erm, ruckus.”

“S’all right. He’s in the shower now. Stay for breakfast, yeah?” When Niall looks hesitant, the guy grins knowingly. “Harry definitely would not mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Mostly because the room smells very strongly of coffee and Niall would actually really like some right now, he pulls out a chair and sits cautiously on the edge of it. Hesitantly he looks across at the eating-Cheerios-like-there’s-no-tomorrow boy and puts down his clothes.

“Zayn, by the way,” the boy offers, nodding as he gulps down another spoonful. “Don’t worry, Harry’s just a...family friend, shall we say. We’re not together.” He air quotes the last word. “You are?”

“Niall,” Niall says. He stops for a second. “So -- his name’s Harry?”

Zayn laughs through a mouthful of cereal. “He didn’t even tell you?” He shakes his head. “Likes to be mysterious, doesn’t he?”

“Erm,” Niall frowns, “actually I can’t really remember if he…”

“Niall.” Zayn seems to have forgotten the fact that he was talking. “Can I ask you something?” Leaning forward, his amused expression disappears and is replaced by a grave seriousness, and Niall’s a little caught off guard by how actually perfect this boy’s facial structure is. It’s honestly impressive. His cheekbones catch the light and cast geometric shadows across the planes of his face.

“Oh – I mean, I can’t really…say no?”

“Do you eat cereal?”

“What?” Niall frowns, thrown. “Um, sometimes. I mean-.”

“See, everyone does, that’s my point. You do, okay. I do. You know? All the time. And yet, you don’t even realize.”

“Realize?”

“Yes, you don’t realize what it’s all about. It’s a metaphor. The cereal is a metaphor.”

“A metaphor.”

“For life, see.”

“What…?” Niall is utterly baffled. This is too much too early for a Sunday morning.

Zayn leans in and focuses his hazel eyes straight onto Niall’s blue ones and just stares, too excited for his own good. “A metaphor!” he urges. “Don’t you see it? You see, you’ve got the yin and the yang, the light and the dark, you’ve got the simplicity of the –.”

“Zayn, man. Leave the poor kid alone.”

Niall turns quickly to see Attractive Person whose name is apparently actually Harry strolling out of the bathroom door, a damp towel slung low across his hips and his dark hair dripping. He looks at Niall and gives him a straight-faced wink that says, _I’ll get him off your case,_ before turning back to Zayn. “He had a rough night,” the boy says, almost reprimanding. “Let him be.”

Zayn just rolls his eyes but gives in, muttering something about _they never understand._ Harry half-smiles triumphantly and ambles over to the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Want some?” he asks Niall, nodding to the pot. “You must have a serious hangover.”

Niall nods. “Yeah, thanks. I should probably…I should probably be on my way…” But no one is listening to his half-hearted attempt to leave, so he trails off.

There’s quiet for a couple seconds with only the sound of pouring liquid, and then Harry’s picking up the two mugs and coming down to shove Zayn out his seat.

There’s a quick tussle and Harry silently threatens him with the steaming hot coffee before Zayn finally gives up and shoves him on the shoulder as he retreats back to his room.

“This isn’t over, Styles.” The door slams behind him.

“So,” Harry starts as he sits down victoriously, looking up from his cup to stare at Niall, “I didn’t catch your name.”

The blonde-haired boy feels quite exposed under the boy’s steady gaze, so for a moment he has a hard time answering. “Niall,” he finally manages.

“I’m Harry.” Harry leans back in his chair and grimaces out the window, not saying anything further. Niall straightens up.

“Sorry, erm, but where am I?”

Harry gives him a sly side-glance. “In my flat?”

 _(Jesus Christ, Zayn wasn’t lying when he said he liked to be mysterious.)_ Niall frowns.

“No, I mean, like, in relation to the pub?”

“Oh, oh,” the boy responds airily, like he’s just realized what Niall meant; Niall suspects he knew exactly what Niall meant, and just wanted to make him fidget -- a suspicion further proved by the smirk that’s playing around the boy’s lips. “Oh, yeah. The pub. Live right above it.”

“Ah.” Niall takes a hesitant sip of his coffee. “Okay. Oh, erm, thanks for the shirt,” he adds, pulling on the fabric. “And for letting me stay. And sorry I tried to kill you with your own plant this morning.”

There’s a low laugh and a quick upturn of pink lips. “Sure, mate. Horatio doesn’t mind.”

 _Horatio?_ Is there someone else who lives in this shoebox? _“Horatio?”_

“The plant,” Harry deadpans.

“The p--. You name your plants?”

“You don’t?”

“No?”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay? Just okay.”

“Just okay.” After a second of this, Harry finally breaks, looking down and laughing. “Sorry,” he says quietly, holding back another small peal of laughter. “I’m not funny. I’ve been told.”

Niall finds him quite weird. And then he says it before he can stop himself, because something about the boy sitting across from him is making it difficult for his filter to work.

“I really want to make it up to you.”

Taking a slow sip of his coffee, Harry eyes him, his laughter slowly dying. Then contemplation. “Yeah, all right.” He squints. “What d’you reckon?”

“What do you mean?”

“What d’you reckon you’ll do for me, as thanks for all of this generosity?”

He’s teasing him, probably, he thinks, but Niall still tries to come up something -- the boy did save him from a potentially ill-fated trek across the city last night.

“How about I pay you?” he suggests, looking up.

Harry studies him, green eyes calculating and still dewy from sleep, and Niall has to lower his gaze and of course lands on Harry’s bare and chiseled chest. Embarrassed, he blinks a couple times and quickly flickers his eyes back up to Harry’s face, but the trail of Niall’s eyes has obviously been noticed, because Harry is fighting a small twitch of the lips. “I might need the money, bro,” he drawls, nearly laughing, “but I know for a fact you only have three dollars in that wallet.”

Niall gets incredibly offended by this very true statement and whacks Harry on the shoulder in retaliation, but it ends up hurting Niall’s hand a lot more than it hurt Harry and he starts to rethink the whole making-it-up-to-him plan.

Too fucking bad that Harry leans forward then, his big eyes all overwhelming and persuasive, and Niall’s heart flips and he forgets his entire train of thought. “Sorry,” the boy breathes, with a little fake pout. “Guess the truth hurts.”

Awful. He was right about not being funny. But Niall finds himself laughing, his mind already on overdrive back on the making-it-up-to-him plan.

_Come with me back to my dorm get your mind worked on by my roommate?_

_Fly to Paris for a romantic candlelit dinner because you’re beautiful and I have an enormous crush on you right now?_

_Mini golf?_

“Do you like cupcakes?” Niall finally decides on, with a small sip of his previously untouched coffee. (For a wondrous moment, his headache lessens.)

Harry’s eyes go wide with surprise. “You serious?”

Niall nods. “You seem like a cupcake guy.”

“I seem like a…!” But then Harry’s not shaking his head, disbelieving anymore, because that small smirk is kind of turning back into that big crooked smile he’d had last night when Niall’s drunken attractiveness had caught him off guard. Stifling it back down to a small kitten smile, he turns to stare out the window again in another feigned contemplative moment. Puts the appropriate contemplative hand on his chin, strokes his appropriate invisible contemplative beard.

“Make sure it’s double fudge,” he announces decidedly, before pausing for an instant. “And you can…get one for yourself, if you like.” When the taller boy looks back because of Niall’s resulting silence, he starts. “What?”

“Oh, it’s just. You mean, like, like right now?”

“Yeah, right now. Not gonna let you sit around here all day, am I?”

The clear joke still makes Niall go pink from a mixture of embarrassment and indignation.

“There’s a place around the corner,” Harry continues, sipping his coffee. “Betty’s.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but for some reason Harry not moving a muscle and continuing to drink his coffee was not it. “So do you…” he falters, “I mean, are you coming with me, then?”

Harry pauses. A small internal argument seemingly ensues, before he eventually glances decidedly down at the towel around his hips; Niall’s eyes inadvertently trail down to do the same, and that earns him a grin. “I haven’t got clothes on, remember, Sunshine?”

Well. Niall’s eyes close at the nickname -- he obviously must have called Harry that last night, which is…embarrassing -- and he stands up stiffly and straightens out his -- god, _Harry’s_ \-- shirt. With a defeated mumble of “Mm, right then,” he spins around to the door and is about to open it when he remembers a sort of important fact. “Erm, how much are they, exactly?”

Harry grins and puts his hands behind his head, the towel slipping down a bit. He doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest. Niall gulps. “More than three dollars,” he says quite happily.

“Oh. Should I still…?”

“My wallet’s on my bedside table.” Harry points to the very same door Niall had snuck out of a few minutes ago. “No cash, but there’s a gift card somewhere.”

“Wait, that was your room I was in?” Niall suddenly feels very warm inside (he should have realized but he didn’t _realize)_ and also a little bad that his presence had pushed the boy out of his own bed. But he swears he can see Harry’s eyes blink open and his body stiffen like he hadn’t expected or wanted Niall to know that.

“Yes, yeah,” he says quickly. “Now go get me that cupcake like you’d promised.”

But Niall’s having none of it. “Where did you sleep, then?” He makes a quick check around the flat just to make sure -- and yeah, this is the only room besides Zayn’s and the bathroom -- and he sees it’s not there, there’s no couch, no pullout. “You didn’t sleep on the floor, did you?”

Harry grumbles something and looks quite annoyed before closing his eyes like he’s thinking.

“I slept in my own bed, of course,” he finally says, in that kind of tone like _of course I slept in my own bed, you’re the strange one for thinking it’s strange that two strangers just shared a bed._ He snorts convincingly. “You kick a lot.”

Niall just stands there. And then looks down at himself quickly, remembering what Zayn said about a ruckus, and -- “Did we--?”

“No! No, oh my god, no.”

“Oh, oh good-.”

“Yeah, um, good.”

“So we didn’t-.”

“No. Hah. No, no.” Then Harry brightens and smiles best he can and repeats himself. “So, uh. Wallet’s on the bedside table.”

Niall rubs a hand under his nose, suddenly very self-conscious, all social instincts telling him to get out of here quick as possible because this is a Weird Situation.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, weighing his options accordingly, when he’s about to just give in, just go why the hell not and buy this attractive half-naked boy the damn cupcakes and just roll with it, when his phone blinks inside his jeans pocket and a number is popping up on the screen.

And then Shakira starts blasting in the middle of his kitchen.

Well. Embarrassment is just coming in the heapfuls today, isn’t it? Quite.

“Gonna answer that?” Harry takes a calm sip of coffee.

“It’s my roommate,” he grumbles, searching quickly for his phone to either answer it or throw it across the room and hopefully smash it to pieces. “Liam. He likes to mess with my ringtones sometimes and see ‘how it affects my mood.’ Hello?”

When he finally answers he immediately hears Liam’s panicked voice on the other end, going on about how Niall had left the dorm in a mess last night and how he really ought to not leave his schoolwork in the trash like that even if he did fail it and how he really can’t live with all of Niall’s clothes all over the place anymore and also “would you please come and help me with this experiment because this is really important for me, Niall, and unlike you I care about school,” and Niall just sets his jaw and tries not to scream. Because there are really only two things in the world that can ever get under Niall’s skin, and goddamn Liam James Payne is one of them.

(The other is English class but he’s planning on damning the entire English department to hell so hopefully that won’t be much of a problem any longer.)

“All right, all right,” he says calmly, trying to avoid Harry’s curious eyes. “Fine. Okay. _Okay,_ Liam. All right. Be there right away. Okay. Bye.”

And then he looks up to see Harry looking quite entertained, like he was having fun observing Niall’s struggle. “You have to go, I’m assuming.”

“I’ll keep my promise about the cupcakes. I swear,” Niall ensures. Niall knows he probably won’t, though, because he has already associated this flat and everything in it with complete and utter embarrassment and would not like to revisit the feeling, but still, he feels bad for lying, still feels like he owes this boy something. Awkwardly, he reapproaches the table and picks up his smelly shirt again from the floor where he dropped it, and then trips on his way back to the door.

“Double fudge,” Harry repeats, pointing at him like he knows Niall will flake out. “I better see you again, got it?” He winks, something almost like a challenge. “Don’t forget.”

“Yeah,” Niall grins. “‘Course.”

 

 

...

 

 

“You said you wouldn’t forget.”

“I’m sooooooorry,” the blonde-haired boy groans, flopping down on his desk chair and resultantly spinning across the room and toward the manifestation of terribleness that calls itself Liam Payne. “I was at a bar, and I crashed somewhere for the night, and I’m _exhausted,_ Liam, so do you think we can-?”

“I don’t want to hear it. Put this on.”

A bike helmet with an assortment of red and yellow wires strapped to it is dropped in his lap. Niall looks up as a naked guy runs past their door screaming about the backed up toilets down the hall. “Are you serious?”

“I just need you to wear it for the week.”

“For the week? Liam, you said this would take twenty minutes-.” There’s more screaming, this time with a girl fake-wretching as she slides past on slippery feet.

“And you said you would be here this morning. Now, put on the damn helmet, and I just might make it three days. Until Tuesday, how’s that?”

Niall sighs. “It’s not going to kill me, is it?”

Liam starts messing with the controls on his computer, quickly scribbling something down on a piece of paper as an ungodly gurgling sound starts coming from the bathrooms. “Probably not. Now, put it on.”

“What does it do?” Niall reluctantly shoves on the helmet, decidedly leaving the strap unclasped.

“It indirectly measures your typical brain activity and the average level of dopamine released after stimulation, most likely sex-related thoughts, which you probably have a lot of, so.”

“Liam!”

“By the way, clean your sheets every once in a while. And maybe wait until I’m asleep next time?” Niall grunts, letting this one slide. “So the sex related thoughts, which I’ve theorized are correlated to tendencies for male dominance and aggression, will then be compared to the readings that I’ll get from the helmet when I have you play Call of Duty, and I’ll find out if my hypothesis is correct.”

Niall barks out a laugh at this. “Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?” (There’s a faint yell of ‘plunger, I need a plunger, stat!’ somewhere two doors down.)

“No way can a pink fucking bike helmet measure my brain activity, Liam. I’m calling bullshit.” He pulls it off and tosses it on the bed. Liam inflates like a blowfish.

“Put on the damn helmet!”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll -- I’ll call the RA.”

“And tell them what exactly?” Niall laughs. “Excuse me, Simon, my roommate won’t allow me to put this extremely dangerous, highly volatile-”

“Slightly volatile-”

“And most likely bullshit helmet on his head for the day, I’d like to report him. Yeah, good luck with that.”

“No,” Liam glares, “I’ll tell him about your drinking in the dorm last week, actually! _And_ what a terrible mess you are.”

“Don’t you dare, Liam!” Niall shouts, furious. He’s sure the people next door can hear them even over the apocalyptic bathroom situation -- they always can -- but right now, he doesn’t care. “You know for damn well I’m not the only one on the floor who does it!”

“No, but you are the only one who smells like booze right now-.”

“You little _shit!”_

“Helmet!”

With a glare, Niall grabs the helmet and slams it on his head. He feels a little smug when one of the wires flies off and lands on the floor.

“Good boy.”

“Shut the fuck up. I hate you so much.”

“Directing your anger onto the innocent-.”

There’s a leap and an angry shout and Liam doesn’t get to finish his sentence, and angrily, Liam shoves him off and grabs his jacket. Once the boy storms out of their room, gagging from the toilet smell and shouting something about going to see his “girlfriend, Niall, know what those are? I’m going to see my _girlfriend,_ not my fucking _left hand,”_ Niall flops down defeatedly on Liam’s bed and flips the helmet around like a football. He won’t be able to complain to Louis about these new developments in his roommate’s insanity until Friday in American Lit, and it's killing him, as his friend’s been down in Doncaster the whole week after his little sister’s birthday party turned into a family emergency when Louis’ firecracker candles ended with, well: fire. Niall really isn’t all that surprised.

(Everyone’s fine -- unless you count the missing eyebrows of Louis and multiple young children.)

He’d go to text him but his phone is dead and his headache is starting to come back full force and Louis is probably in a flurry of things and won’t answer anyway. Niall doesn’t know why he’s even friends with him, except for the fact that he loves him way too much. Tossing the helmet across the room, Niall grabs a pillow and pulls it across his face, succumbing to his pounding hangover from this morning. Even the birds outside his dorm window are beginning to sound like screeching saws. Or maybe those are the hisses of the plumbing. (There's a loud, 'OH DEAR GOD!' from next door.)

Either way, three minutes later, he wakes up with a lurch when he falls off the bed.

This week is going to suck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think or leave comments or whatever you please!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you are all liking it so far and umM ok??
> 
> being sick is literally de worst

Dropping a second bag of Cheetos into the cart, there’s a second’s pause before Josh reaches for yet another. It falls quite delicately on top of their small mountain of food.

The stocky boy is completely and entirely oblivious to the way his band mate frowns beside him, since those things are honestly just little heart attacks of scientifically modified cheese and Harry knows they’ll have finished the entire bag anyway before they even get back to band practice.

“And I can’t stand it, you know?” Josh continues, eyes roving the fluorescently lit aisle for some more death-inducing junk food to stuff into their already overflowing cart. Harry reluctantly accepts the fact that his optimistic choice of broccoli might be thoroughly squashed under all of the protein drinks, but he’s not really complaining because at least he’s not the one picking up the tab. (That’s one of the things Harry hates about Josh but always kind of takes advantage of anyway -- he never thinks about paying for stuff like groceries.)

“Like, I get it, Zayn, you’re an _actor,”_ Josh booms, rolling his eyes. “You _act._ Write plays, whatever. Okay. But, no, I do not want to read with you! So he gets all mad, right, like I’ve just pledged my allegiance to Satan, you know, so I say to him, like, ‘don’t get your pants in a twist,’ right? And you know what he does?”

Josh stops and looks at Harry, his open hands and body gestures basically calling for Harry to actually say ‘what’ before continuing.

“What,” Harry says, reluctantly fond.

Josh nods his head with big, annoyed eyes and keeps walking. Harry keeps rolling the cart, only slightly embarrassed because its small wheels are barely keeping up with his long strides and he’s having quite a lot of trouble controlling it.

His drummer friend here usually takes the cart, but he’s kind of too preoccupied with throwing around obscene hand gestures whilst complaining about (the ridiculous tendencies and weird thoughts that make up) Zayn to be able to handle such a trying job.

“He says to me,” Josh screeches, looking a bit like he wants to either punch the stand of Goldfish next to them or maybe kick the basket of innocent grocery shopper a few feet in front of them, “he says to me, ‘Josh, I’ve done an _advert._ An advert! I don’t see any of _your_ songs on a record, now do I.’ Like, the hell, Zayn? I love the guy, but sometimes I swear he thinks he’s the next Gandhi or something.”

He stops and looks up.

“Gandhi’s not a –- no, I’m thinking of –- who was the president actor lad in America?”

“Reagan?”

“Reagan. I don’t fucking know, Reagan, whatever. But you know what I do know,” he says, pointing at Harry like he ought to know what Josh knows, “is that he’s psycho. Zayn, not Reagan. Am I right, or what? I’m right, right?”

“Right,” Harry nods, not really paying attention to their discussion of the fortieth president of the United States because he’s just steered his cart into the shopper ahead of him. Again.

He fucking swears he is never going to be on cart duty again because this is the fourth time it’s happened in twelve minutes and it’s just getting to be downright shameful. “Sorry,” he pleads, trying to turn the wheels straight again and looking fleetingly over his shoulder.

And then his mouth legitimately drops open.

A conscious thought is needed to close it again.

He doesn’t quite say or do anything at all except nearly crash into a display of granola bars because he’s still, for god-knows-what-reason, walking forward at a rather fast pace with his head turned completely around.

_What are the fucking chances?_ But then again, how could Harry have not realized this before, honestly, now that he’s really looking -- the stature, the trousers with a white slip of paper sticking out of the pocket, the messy blonde tips of hair poking out from under a…helmet?

“Niall--?” he squawks. “Are you -- what are you doing here? And what’s on your head?”

The boy in question actually shrieks when he sees him, stopping short and violently whipping off the headgear and shoving it in his basket. _“Harry,_ um, hi there, um, this isn’t, this is all Liam-.”

“Jesus, he’s just a little –- who’s this?” Josh finally stops ranting for the first time in what seems to be six thousand years and turns around. “Oh. Oh. Ha. Ha! _You?”_ A spark of recognition fires in his eyes and he laughs in an outburst, giving Harry a look, one of those _looks_ where Harry just _knows_ he’s going to –-

“Hah! Harry won’t stop talking about you at band practice. It’s been three whole days.”

Niall's eyes bulge the most infinitesimal amount. Well. _This is shit,_ quantifies Harry, horrified.

“About that promise,” he quickly amends, fighting down the string of insults he really wants to throw Josh’s way right about now. "Talking about that -- promise." His so-called fucking friend has basically just dug Harry a deep deep hole that he’s about to fall right into if he takes one wrong step, and he doesn't seem to care in the slightest.

A hole called, Hey, You’re Kinda Cute And I’m A Creepy Stalker That You’ll Want To Avoid At All Costs And Never Want To See Again Nice To Meet You!

“You haven’t, like, um, forgotten, have you,” Harry continues. Stay cool. Cool like a cucumber. Shut up, brain.

At this, Niall coughs and doesn’t quite look Harry in the eye when he answers, pulling on his navy sweatshirt. “What? No.” He stares down at the linoleum floor, squeaking his sneakers. Harry’s smile kind of droops a little bit because oh.

“I’m Josh, by the way, if anyone remembers me,” Josh grumbles, leaning against the granola display. “That drummer guy?”

“Josh. Yeah, I remember you, from my -- drunken haze.” Niall laughs at himself and points a thumb into his own chest. “Niall.”

Josh snorts. “I know.”

“Erm, right.” The blonde-haired boy looks up at Harry like he doesn’t know what to do next, and, dammit, he looks a little cute with that confused face, and dammit, Harry thinks he just felt a wink happen. 

When he sees Niall go a bit red, he feels his foot teetering right on the edge of that stupid hole. “Anyway," he starts, "Zayn was hoping he’d see you again.”

At the mention of this name Josh goes off grumbling toward the next aisle, muttering nonsensicals, so suddenly it just becomes Harry and Niall now, alone, and Harry just wants to scream COME BAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!! because this is going to be awkward and he doesn’t do well with awkwardness.

“Zayn?”

“Yeah,” Harry bites his lip. “Yeah. Zayn. And…me. Maybe me, too.”

Why'd he say that?

It's happened, he's falling, the hole has won.

Shut up, Harry. Shut up shut up.

This is why you _think_ before you say things.

He rests a casual elbow on the cart handle before continuing and it wheels forward a little, making him stumble, and he drops his arm fast. “Because, you know, the cupcakes,” he explains dismissively. Quite passable, he thinks. Very blase. His eyes train themselves on the contents of Niall’s basket instead of Niall himself. He’s such a twat.

When he finally looks up, he sees that the boy has a faint pink across his cheeks, which bothers Harry because he doesn’t understand why unless he’s feeling secondhand embarrassment for him. Which is actually understandable.

“Right,” Niall responds, nodding, searching the aisle again. His fingers move past a couple chip bags, looking for something in particular. He skips easily past the Cheetos, and Harry thinks momentarily he might have found his soulmate. “The cupcakes.”

“Looking for this one?” He leans forward and picks it up before Niall does, the store brand variety pack hidden behind the Doritos. Gingerly, he hands it out to him like a peace offering. (Or something like it, after, you know, meeting someone that you should have never seen again on a random Tuesday afternoon and then proceeding to engage in unnecessary and awkward conversation.)

Niall raises an eyebrow and hesitantly takes the pack out of the taller boy’s outstretched hand and stuffs it into his basket. “How’d you know?”

“Random guess,” Harry answers, his mouth crooking up into a grin.

It actually wasn’t a random guess -- Niall had been checking the prices and it was relatively the cheapest in the aisle, and the only variety pack and he remembered Niall had a roommate he didn’t get along with, so Harry just kind of made the wild assumption that they would like different chips as well. Simple.

But he decides to _not_ go into how much he's just over-analyzed the boy standing in front of him, so he sticks with the smile.

Niall finally truly laughs then, and the awkwardness wondrously lessens. “You’re freaking insane.”

“Coming from the boy wearing a pink bike helmet in a grocery store?” Harry laughs. “And insane?” he asks teasingly, scrunching his nose. “Really? Weird, sure, but insane…?”

“It’s a compliment,” Niall says quickly, giggling. “So, talking about me at band practice, huh?" he asks. "How’s that going?”

"Talking about you? Great, yeah, I've just gotten an official award from the Creepy Olympics on How To Make People Feel Uncomfortable Around You. Won second for 'having your friends mention that you talk about him.' Oh, right," he says. "You mean the band practice, don't you."

"Second is quite an accomplishment."

"Can't believe I didn't win."

"So what's the name of your band, then?"

Harry blushes. "You see, that's a very good question." He closes his eyes. "For which I do not...have an answer."

"You don't know the name of your own band."

"Now, you see, here we have the problem. The problem is, in fact, that we don't have a name."

"No name?"

"Well, we go out on food runs," he explains, “probably more than we play. Let alone run through the logistics of the whole thing. This is, what. Our second food trip in the past three hours?”

“Oh, your practice is now?" Niall jumps on his feet a little. "I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in the middle of practice -- I should let you go.”

Harry wants to scream ‘no, stay, cute boy,’ but unfortunately societal norms dictate him otherwise, so he just says, very disappointed on the inside, “Oh, it’s fine, but. I should let you get back to...whatever it was that helmet is for.”

“Liam.” Niall replies grimly. “Don’t ask. D’you know he actually thinks it’s going to work?”

“What’s it do?”

“It’s supposed to measure my brain waves, but all it’s doing is making my arm hair stand on end.”

Harry frowns. “Do you know if it runs on a circuit? Well, I mean it must, but.”

Now it’s Niall’s turn to frown. “How much do you know about circuits?”

“Not much,” Harry answers. “Just...can I see it? If it’s series, there’s not much hope, but if it’s parallel…” Suspiciously, Niall hands him the helmet and Harry sets to work on examining the wires. Just as he suspected, the exposed resistor on the side is faulty. With a small twist, he fits it back to place on the wire and hands the contraption back to the now apparently slightly annoyed, slightly impressed boy in front of him. “What?” he asks slowly.

“How’d you do that?” Niall wonders, staring down at the helmet. “I’m in physics and I've been trying that for hours...”

Harry just shrugs his shoulders, filing that small nugget of information away in his brain. _So he’s the math and sciences type. Wait, no! Why do you feel the need to have a mental file on this boy! Stop it!_

“I, um, anyway." Niall puts the helmet, very very reluctantly, back on his head, and Harry stifles a laugh when it makes his ears poke out. "I guess I’ve got to go. I should get going.” He nods toward the checkout lane and takes a half step away, still looking up at Harry. His blonde hair is adorably flipped up around the edge of the contraption. “But...it was nice to see you again, Harry.”

His cheeks suddenly go pink, and Harry still can’t figure out why.

“Yeah,” Harry says.

“So I better be off,” Niall says again, not moving. “Liam, you know, needs the results. Of the experiment. Today.”

Harry just nods as the boy's poking-out ears start to faintly tinge with color too.

“Bit stupid, really stupid, really, something about male aggression, but, you know. Better be going.” The color from Niall’s ears creeps down to his neck to make everything a light shade of pink as Harry continues to look at him, and Harry frowns.

“’Course.”

It’s like the less words he says more flushed Niall gets. Interesting.

“So, I should probably….”

Harry levels his eyes with him, lessening his words to zero, and a light sheen of sweat is even starting to appear across the boy’s forehead. Why? What’s happening? Is he really that intimidating?

“I won’t forget about those cupcakes, I swear.”

Fuck the cupcakes, oh dear God!

And Harry says as much, laughing, before he suddenly thinks he understands the excessive flushing. The white little paper. “And erm, feel better.”

“Yeah, sorry I -- What?”

“Just a…you just look a bit flushed,” Harry says without conviction. “You look fine. Food poisoning? Sorry. Never mind.”

“Wait, food poisoning? Why food poisoning?”

“The receipt,” Harry blurts out when the boy blinks at him with big blue eyes. “Sticking out of your pocket. Got food poisoning there, too. Sorry.”

How does he manage to always make things so. Fucking. _Awkward?_ He'll dump his head in a bucket of ice when he gets back home. First he needs to find a bucket of ice. Maybe Aisle Three.

“The receipt?”

“The. Um, it’s for the Chinese place down the street, yeah?”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah. The receipt.”

His musky cologne might not be the best thing for the stability of the possibly-food-poisoned person in front of him, so the second he notices Niall go a shade paler, he jumps back. At this, Niall snorts. “I’m not a ticking time bomb, Haz,” he laughs, before paling again and suddenly looking queasy. “Um. On second thought--.”

“Sure you’re all right?” Harry asks quietly. (His insides are currently fluttering because Niall just called him Haz. Wait, stop, no they’re not. There are no flutters in Harry’s insides because this boy just called him his favorite nickname.)

“Fine, fine, no, I’m fine,” Niall gushes.

“Right,” Harry agrees, looking over his shoulder to where Josh disappeared a few minutes ago. “Okay. Well. That kid needs supervision. Feel better, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Niall nods his head, but Harry sees him frown and hold a hand to his stomach and he starts to think his deduction was right. As they're not exactly at the level of friendship yet where throwing up in front of each other is completely acceptable, he decides he better cut off the conversation now and save him the pain. So he grabs a bag of chips at random and tosses it into his cart. “Okay. Okay, get better. See you around, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall says quietly, looking very not good.

Harry stops. “Niall, do you need me to take you back to your dorm?”

“I think I’m okay,” he mumbles.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Niall smiles. “See you around?"

"Of course."

When Harry looks up one last time, Niall's already turned the corner.

 

 

...

 

 

Shit.

It was food poisoning.

Harry was right.

Liam’s gonna kill him.

But he can’t really help but laugh a little, because he never really liked that poster of Kate Upton anyway. The one that he sort of projectile-vomited onto the second he’d walked in the door.

Liam’ll just have to deal.

Niall slumps down onto their floor, away from the mess, and half decides to curl up and fall asleep there because he’s honestly exhausted. Puking your guts out really takes it out of you. (Literally and figuratively.)

Even though his actual bed is less than ten feet away, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to be on it, because his mattress is less of a mattress and more of a torture device of metal springs with less than a centimeter of what that stupid mattress company called padding.

So, yeah, the floor’s fine for now.

Feeling wretched, he reaches out an arm, his eyes closed and the side of his mouth pressed up against the cool floor, and slides it unwillingly across the commercial-grade white speckled tile, reaching for the trash bin underneath his desk.

Niall almost has his fingers around the base, he’s almost pulling it towards him –- which is good because the smell of his own vomit is making him want to vomit again -– when the door flies open and Liam’s rushing in and screaming about how he “followed the trail of disgusted people, Niall, you threw up outside the dorm building” –- when (the thought of this makes Niall want to both laugh and vomit at the same time; the second one’s kind of winning so he pulls the bin up to his mouth quick) -– when Liam kind of slips in the mess by the poster and falls on his ass.

Niall finally vomits into the bin and then slowly looks over at Liam.

Who’s glaring at him with the sort of pure and unadulterated hatred usually only ever reserved for a Disney grade cartoon villain. A villain who is currently sitting in the other one’s bodily fluids. There are actual tears forming in Liam’s eyes. He is that angry.

And then Niall can’t stop laughing.

“I’m fucking calling the RA,” Liam growls, a hitch in his throat.

Niall can only laugh harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think and such and I hope you all have a wonderful daY?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is taking a while to update...happy belated valentine's day, in any case!!

At approximately two in the afternoon on every Friday, Niall feels like has to come to terms to the fact that he will never pay full attention to anything that is happening around him.

It’s not as hard as he thinks. He zones out happily in the overheated classroom.

“Niall. You hear me? What are you doing this weekend?”

He jumps out of his revere and looks toward the impish, mousy-haired boy who’s just sat down beside him with a pink gel pen and an expectant look. Shaking himself from his wandering thoughts (of tall, green-eyed boys with good smelling skin and dimpled smiles), Niall grins and pulls out a few textbooks.

He’d fought, he really had, for scheduling zero classes on Friday, but the counseling lady apparently still holds a grudge from the time when he accidentally flooded her office bathroom freshman year. It was a faulty faucet. She refuses to believe this.

Niall looks up again at his best friend and half-heartedly arranges his notebooks and American Literature textbooks on his desk to look like he’s somewhat ready for class. “Hi, Lou. Your eyebrows grew back.”

“I heard you went out last weekend,” Louis asserts, ignoring the comment, “without me. That’s just not allowed, my friend. I am way too desperate to be staying in my dorm this weekend, as it’s been a full week since I’ve had a drink, so I want in. What’d you do?”

“Just went out to a pub. Not much. Who told you I went out?”

“Liam,” Louis says, sharing an exasperated look with Niall because their mutual dislike of the boy is really how they came to be friends.

Liam is Louis’ partner in Bio and is always trying to get Louis to open up about how it feels to be an openly gay man in university -- because he’s a _psychologist_ and you can _tell_ him these things -- and Louis can barely stand him any better than Niall.

“Liam?” Niall whispers back, keeping his voice low because that boy is quite nosy and also currently only sitting a few seats behind them.

“Yeah, I didn’t even ask. He never shuts up about you.” Louis smiles wryly. _“Got vomit on my poster, ruins my life on a daily basis, I try to tell him..._ I think someone has a crush, ‘Ni.’”

“He doesn’t call me ‘Ni.’ No.”

“Oh, but he does. Thinks it’s a _thing._ Guess he really missed you last weekend.”

“Brilliant sarcasm, top notch,” Niall says as he rolls his eyes. “I see why you’re an actor.”

“I’d like to thank the academy….”

Niall snorts as the double doors to the lecture hall swing wide open, bouncing back against the walls. There’s a near audible groan as Mr. Jacobs struts -- if fat old men with nothing but tufts of gray hair and tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses _could_ strut -- straight to the large oak desk in the front of the room, a teetering stack of what's to be their next class assignment towering over Mr. Jacobs’ ancient computer.

“It is remarkable,” booms Mr. Jacobs, setting both hands on the table and nearly toppling the stack of books as an eerie silence hushes through the room, “that persons who speculate the most _boldly...”_

He plucks up four or five of the thin paperbacks and starts to walk around his desk to hand them out as he continues.

“...Often conform with the most perfect quietude,” he say, stopping to stare at the class, dropping his hands to his hips and peeking over the rim of his turquoise glasses, “to the external regulations of society.”

“The fuck,” Niall hears Louis murmur beside him. Niall fights down a twitch of the lips.

“The Scarlet Letter,” Jacobs simply declares, more than willing to impress upon them all his own genius. “The Scarlet Letter. Anyone know it?”

Several daring people raise their hands into the air, but the rest of the class either quietly nod or else look furtively around to make sure they’re not the only stupid ones.

Mr. Jacobs simpers, continuing to hand out the remaining copies to the students in the front of each row of the lecture hall. Niall finally has one handed to him, and he frowns at the cover, then flips to the inside page’s copyright information.

Of course it wouldn’t have been written recently. Nor in normal human English. Jacobs is much too much of a prat for that.

The entire English Department is too much of a prat for that. He reminds himself to damn them all to hell.

“For those of you who aren’t as… _well-read,_ shall we say, you’ll know this by the abysmal Hollywood movie remake of a few years ago. Easy A, anyone?”

There’s a couple ‘oh yeah's’ around the room and Jacobs seems ruffled but satisfied nonetheless. He pulls on his suspenders, and the second he turns his back, Louis is turning to Niall and pretending to shoot himself in the head.

It’s when he’s pretend-convulsing that Niall snorts embarrassingly loud, and a few people in front of him have to glance back to see what animal just died.

(Two people even roll their eyes when they see it’s Niall, because any commotion in this class is really only ever caused by Niall. Usually snoring, to be perfectly honest.)

“Five weeks!” Jacobs booms again after a short silence, now back behind his desk with a vomit-inducing, smug little smile on his cherry red face. “You have five weeks to read, analyze, and examine one -- and I’ll make this interesting -- major or _minor_ character for this surprise assignment.”

Tortoiseshell Glasses shakes his teacher copy back and forth in one of his hands to be clear on what exactly he means.

“Write me an essay on the evolution of their character. Short notice, wasn’t in your syllabus, but that’s the reason why we’re giving you the books instead of making you all go out and buy them. Let’s call this a gift. And the best part,” he chuckles -- quite forebodingly as chuckles go -- “is that the character analysis is just one aspect of your overall grade! There's an extra component: surprise me. It could be anything, but it must be extraordinary! Do this in five weeks, have it on my desk Monday morning, ten to fifteen pages, double spaced, and hopefully that will limit the amount of tears and whimpers at my desk the next day, begging for an extension. Questions?”

There’s a bit of a stunned silence. Niall feels his insides writhing with disgust. It’s not like this is anything new, but still. Disgust.

He thinks he’ll stick to his mechanical engineering major, thanks.

“Good. That’s all for this period.”

As everyone starts packing up their things, surprised but happy for the one miracle of a five-minute class, Mr. Jacobs stares down the lecture hall one last time, searching all two hundred eyes.

“Class time for the next few weeks will be a discussion of major themes throughout the novel, which should help you figure out your characters.” He looks around again, and Niall swears his gaze lands on him. “And the challenge…begins!"

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

“I’ll be out for a bit, yeah?” Zayn grabs his satchel from the kitchen counter and looks back at Harry, feet up on the table. “Got a voicemail from my agent.” The curly-haired boy leans laxly back in his chair as he pours over the same paperback he’s been focused on all day, and there’s barely a grunt in response as the boy turns the page and continues to read. He looks almost bored, but his eyes are flitting quickly across the pages.

Its paper binding is already starting to curl on the spine where one of Harry’s fingers has been absently rubbing at an exposed spot, and the curtains that the boy just bought are still lying in their box by the window. The paint swatches that he’s always messing about with -- he’s going to “fix up this apartment one day, goddammit!” -- are also still splayed out on the floor and table from his short stint of a redecorating initiative this morning.

Already, he’s flipping to the next page. The package that it came in, sent in the mail from his sister down in Wales, is stuck to his foot.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Zayn snorts.

There’s no response, so the skinny boy just spins the keys to their flat around on his thin finger and walks out, flicking the door shut behind him. The sound will eventually make its way to Harry’s brain.

Zayn’s about halfway down the short hallway when it does, and it makes him smile wryly because the boy was never all that great with his comebacks anyway.

“Don’t strain your... _face!”_ comes the muffled shout through the door. And then, after a pause, “I know you’re listening, Zayn, I know that was crap.”

Zayn laughs, loud enough so the boy hears.

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

_cant believe ur leaving me u bugger haha have fuun with seannnn!!_

Niall checks the text from Louis and wraps his coat tighter around his body, quickly jumping out of the way of the speeding bicycle. He quickly types a reply and shoves his phone in his pocket.

Avoiding the line of sight of the windows above, the boy hurries down the street and clings to the box in his hands, still slightly warm from the bakery. He’d had to give Lou some bullshit excuse about meeting his old school friend tonight to be able to get here, and in his preoccupied guilt he nearly catches his foot on the step up when he finally reaches the door he’d been looking for.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t tell him. He should have told him.

It’s not even a big deal. It’s not even a deal. It’s a quantum-sized vibration in the makeup of the universe, if that. He could have told him.

Why is he nervous? It’s nothing. He doesn’t even know why he’s doing this, he shouldn’t even be doing this, but he’s already bought them so there’s really no going back now. Niall’s just hoping he can just swing in and out of there without being seen and end the whole thing and then catch a drink with Louis and have a generally typical Saturday night of pizza and telly and just move on.

(While secretly pining for Attractive Person.)

(Harry.)

(Harry Styles, wasn’t it? His full name’s Harry Styles. God, that’s a good name.)

Nope, moving on. You’re never gonna see him again, so forget about the beautiful indie tall pretty nice green-eyed boy with good lips.

Good job.

Niall quickly finds the hidden staircase behind the bar that he’d come down last weekend and straightens his shoulders, preparing himself, and starts up the stairs slowly. The fourth step creaks quite loudly. Mentally he curses.

The seventh step creaks, too, a little more quietly but still basically loud enough to notify the entire city and especially the people living in the flat above, and Niall wants to kick something.

This is so stupid. He is a grown man, nearly twenty years old. He is not that thirteen year old with silly crushes on his brother’s friends anymore. No, he is a grown man.

No he’s not. He’s an idiot. Holding an enormous box of cupcakes.

He edges to the side of the stairs, hoping to make a little less noise, and creeps up the final few steps onto the stained carpet of a long and narrow hallway, the white cardboard box gripped tightly in his hands. He nearly stumbles on his loose shoelaces, but the sound of clinking silverware and laughter from the early crowd in the pub downstairs is wafting up to where he’s standing, so hopefully that helped disguise his less-than-graceful entrance.

Okay.

Knock on his door.

Okay, you should do that. Grow a pair of balls. Don’t just leave the stupid note that you wrote on the bus here that says “Thanks.” Because your handwriting sucks. And it’s stupid.

Knock. On. His. Door.

His hands are sweating.

So he has every intention on not knocking on his door and just leaving it there under the dim flickering lights with that stupid little note that says “Thanks” and then bolting away like a fucking gazelle into the night, but then he’s hearing that familiar surprised laugh behind him and he nearly drops the box to the floor in terror.

“Is this a home invasion I’m walking in on?” Zayn laughs, jumping up the last step onto the landing and sticking a pen behind his ear as he reaches for his keys in the pocket of his trousers. “Wouldn’t mind if it was, t’be honest, blondie.”

Niall’s frozen, and it takes a second for him to thaw. His mind is really just a blur of _shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit_ which isn’t really helpful. “I’m dropping these off?”

Zayn looks over his shoulder and just notices the box. “Cupcakes! He owes me a twenty. You don’t want to come in?”

“I, uh, I’m a bit--.”

“Great! Harry’s here, I think, you can come say hello.”

“Harry? You’re sure he wouldn’t--?”

“The fuck is my key? Harry!” Zayn starts pounding on the door, completely not hearing Niall’s stuttered objections whatsoever. As he knocks on the door Niall notices what looks like scribbles of writing all up and down Zayn’s thin arm with words and dates and sketched shooting stars. “Harry, I left my key in there, open up.”

There’s a loud grunt from inside, along with the snapping shut of what sounds like a book and then something that sounds suspiciously like ‘You left your brain in here, too, idiot,’ and then there’s a couple clicks and a sliding of a chain and the door is jerked open and Harry’s standing there with bored eyes. “You always fucking forget, Zay--.”

“You owe me a twenty, Styles, he did come.”

“Who?”

“Hiya, Harry.” Niall pops out from behind Zayn and waves, holding out the box with the other hand and trying to ignore the sudden butterflies in his stomach and the pounding of his heart. (He’s even prettier than he remembered.)

“Hi, Niall...did you really buy those?”

“I did, er, promise, didn’t I?”

“Right,” Harry says, impressed. “Come in. I was just, er, you want anything to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Niall says. “I should probably go, actually. You two have probably got plans, and...things.”

But Zayn grabs the box from his hands and puts a hand on his shoulder, his eyes squinting from the size of his blinding smile. “You’re cute. Come in, wouldn’t you?”

Harry sighs and shakes his head. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just an idiot sometimes -- no, actually, all the time--.”

“Shut up, you dick.” Zayn then goes serious, looking confidingly to Niall. “Harry thinks you’re cute, too, said so.”

Harry frowns and a light blush dusts Niall’s cheeks. He currently hates everything because he keeps blushing and it must be really fucking obvious and he feels like a child.

He is supposed to be a. Grown. Man.

Niall really can’t get out anything coherent other than, “Sotheyhadthedoublefudge.”

With that, Zayn grins again and pulls him into the room, the late yellow sunlight filtering in from the open windows and splattering square windowpane patterns against the hardwood floor. A couple decorating books lay piled up on the kitchen table on top of an old silver laptop, and there’s another one with a bookmark sticking out of it, and immediately he recognizes it as the novel he’s reading for class. Which is exactly what he says when Zayn tosses the cupcake box onto the kitchen counter.

“What?” Harry fumbles.

“The Scarlet Letter, by Hawthorne. You’re reading it, are you?”

“Oh, yeah, was just around. My sister sent it.”

“Did you get to Pearl?" Niall asks with a small smile. "Nightmare child, ain't she."

Proactive work usually isn’t his thing, but Niall figured that he might as well just get it out of the way now and save himself the suffering, so he’s already a fair bit into it. (Which definitely did not go over well with Liam, who eventually lectured him about the perils of sleep deprivation long enough for Niall to finally give up with a groan and turn off his light at one thirty-three in the morning and toss the book across the room at Liam’s face.)

Harry ponders this. “Yeah…No, actually, she reminded me of myself--.”

“Tea?” Zayn asks, already setting the kettle on the stovetop for himself and running a hand through his dark hair. “Tea time’s at four o’clock, right?” Surreptitiously, he pulls out a flask of something and takes a swig, before shrugging his shoulders and dumping the rest in his empty cup.

The taller boy rolls his eyes and checks his watch, a weathered leather strip of a thing that half-covers some small tattoo of a black locket on his left wrist. “Nearly five. And not everyone from England likes tea, man. What a stereotype.”

“I’m from Ireland, actually.”

“Details.”

“Hey!”

“Joking,” Harry grins. Zayn, anyway, isn’t deterred, instead just adjusting the heat on the stove with his scribbled-on hand.

“So tea, then?” he asks.

At this, Niall clears his throat and looks at Harry, who’s busy clearing off his books and laptop what looks like paint swatches. “I don’t know if I should stay,” he says gently. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“No, stay!” Zayn exclaims. “We’re not doing anything tonight. Losers, we are.” He pulls out three cups from their squeaky cabinet and sets them down on the small counter. The only other things in there are three plates and six brightly colored bowls -- probably all bought specifically for Zayn’s cereal obsession.

“You sure?”

“You brought us food. Course. You’re not meant to be anywhere, are you?” Zayn pulls the pot off the stove and pours it sloppily into the mugs, then looks up at Niall. “Sugar?”

“Yeah. And no I’m not -- no,” Niall starts, moving into action. “No, I can do that.” He takes the cup from Zayn and searches for some kind of sugar-like container, when a couple small white paper things hit him in the chest.

“All we have is sugar packets,” explains Zayn, pulling out some more from the cutlery drawer for himself and Harry. “We nick ‘em from the pub downstairs. In case you haven’t noticed,” he eyes him, gesturing around their dinky little apartment, “we’re shit poor.”

“We’re young,” rationalizes Harry as he walks back in from his bedroom, the books and computer hastily dumped back on his bed comforter. “If we’re still living like this in five years, like when we’re on the cusp of actual adulthood, then I’ll admit we’re shit poor.”

Niall laughs, pulling out two chairs at the table. “With you,” he says, tearing open a sugar packet and shaking it into his drink. “Uni student, remember?”

Taking the cue, Harry sits down across from Niall, and when Niall chances a small glance up from his tea, he thinks he catches Harry looking at him.

“So, anyway. The, uh, book. Who were you saying Pearl reminded you of?” Niall asks, half-distracted because Harry’s foot is nudging just barely against his leg. (The pining is going to be so much worse than he expected tonight.)

Zayn is still busy by the counter, pouring copious amounts of cream and sugar and probably basically every condiment on the face of the earth into his and Harry’s teas, mumbling to himself and stirring quickly. Niall makes a mental note to introduce him to Louis -- they’re eerily similar in their mannerisms.

Harry chews slowly on his lip. “Myself,” he says after a second. “Dunno why. And Zayn, stop talking to yourself, we talked about this.”

“An actor never takes a break, Styles. My agent wants me to audition tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah?” Niall looks up. “What for?”

Zayn glances down at him arm, and Niall finally realizes what the words are as he recites them, some theatre down the road. It sounds familiar.

“That wouldn’t be for that zombie play, would it?”

“Yeah, why?”

“My friend’s directing that -- Louis Tomlinson -- you know him?”

Zayn blanches, and Harry lets out a squawk of surprise. “Are you serious? Louis Tomlinson is all Zayn ever talks about. _So talented, you should have seen him in the Peter Pan production, only a uni student, so good, I love him!”_

Zayn’s gone quiet. “I didn’t know he was directing,” he near-whispers.

“Yeah, he is. If you want I can set you up with a meeting--.”

“NO! No, don’t, please, I don’t know if I--.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Niall assures. “Do you, I don’t know, want his number instead?”

Harry cracks up at the look on Zayn’s face. “He does, yeah.”

“Zayn? I don’t have to give you his number. Are you okay?” He smiles tentatively and leans back toward Harry. “Did I break him?” he whispers.

“His number…” Zayn finally says, shaking his head. “No that’s okay, no, you can keep his number. I don’t want to, you know, fraternize with the. Oh my god.”

“This is hilarious,” is all Harry says. He gets up and takes the cups of tea and the box from Zayn’s frozen hands and sets them all down on the table, taking a sip himself. “Never seen him so shaken. Incredible. Zayn, you with us? Cupcakes?”

Finally, at this, Zayn comes back to them, smiling widely and rubbing his hands together. “All right. Shall we?”

“It’s not a feast, you know.”

But even with all his talk, Harry is the first one to reach over Niall’s arm and unseal the box with a fast swipe of his finger across the pink sticker.

It only takes them eleven minutes to get through the first five.

“Oh, wait, by the way, Niall, I love you.” Zayn kisses him on the cheek and smears icing all over both their faces when they’re all roughly on their third.

Harry, on the other side of the table, reaches over and pushes him away from Niall’s surprised face after a second too long.

It takes them forty two minutes to get through the next five, but they are still unstoppable. Young men with cupcakes and appetites are not something of which to get in the way.

Apparently Harry had been in that pastry shop enough and had charmed and winked at enough of the female workers in there that when Niall had let slip that Harry’d recommended the place, the old lady who owned the shop, Betty, had given him about a lifetime’s worth of free cupcakes and a message for Harry to ‘come down whenever he likes, the menace.’

Niall couldn’t keep a straight face when repeating that one.

There’s still a smudge of butterscotch on Niall’s top lip, speaking of, and Harry pauses and nods for him to wipe it off, consciously restraining himself from doing it himself. The blonde-haired boy starts and rubs it quickly.

Though the dimming light is finally starting to expose just how long the blue-eyed boy has been here, Harry finds he doesn’t actually mind. It's nice.

The boy is funny, and deceptively smart -- they got into a long argument about politics that had Zayn checking his phone. When they get on the topic of theatre again, though, he sees even Zayn is drawn in by the boy’s charisma, nudging his chair closer every few minutes.

(Harry decides he better do something about that, so he stands up under the false pretense of throwing out his cupcake wrapper and ‘accidentally’ knocks over Zayn’s cuppa.)

“Sorry about that!” he exclaims, fussing with the mess. The two stand up to avoid the dribbling remnants of chamomile, and Harry is childishly satisfied. “So,” he continues conversationally, “acting. Fun stuff.”

“You don’t understand, Harry.” Zayn turns to Niall. “He doesn’t understand that I’m double-majoring in Philosophy and Theatre and therefore know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah? What year are you?”

“Graduating this year. Only a few more months. You?”

“Sophomore.”

“Ah, cool. Okay. And…”

“Louis?”

“Oh, I…”

“He’s a sophomore, too.”

Zayn nods and clears his throat. “Oh. Cool.”

Tossing away the wrapper, Harry saunters back to the pair of them still by the kitchen table, in the last streaks of grayish pink light coming in from the window. It hits Niall’s eyes quite nicely, and Harry finds he can’t really look away.

“I went to university, as well,” he says after a pause. “But’m not on some higher level of consciousness like Zayn. I dunno.” Harry shrugs his shoulders with a half-smile. “I like my music.”

Zayn bites out of his fourth butterscotch (the same as Niall’s) and grins with his mouth full. Harry’s silently fuming because he fucking knows Zayn hates butterscotch.

“I write screenplays,” Zayn explains, holding out his arms to show the scribbles of what must be some unfinished scenes of some production. “I’m a poetic performance artist. Right now, though, I’ll take what I can get.”

Niall nods in polite acknowledgment, lifts one of Zayn’s arms up to get a closer look, and then glances at Harry curiously. “What university'd you go to? Didn’t know you’d already graduated.”

“Cambridge,” Harry answers, watching Zayn shuffle over to the counter in his ripped jeans and fuchsia socks and hop up on it.

“Whoa, what?” Niall exclaims. His surprise makes Harry look back at him and squint suspiciously through his eyelashes. “Cambridge, wow.”

Harry just keeps squinting silently at him, and waits for Niall to start floundering. He does.

“I mean, erm, no, cool -- I just thought…I mean, you’re smart, obviously, I just thought, erm, you didn’t, erm, you’re young. Sorry.” Niall shuts himself up quickly. "What'd you, um, study?"

“English and law,” Harry answers slowly. “And I didn’t. Graduate, I mean. I just went for the first year."

“Dropped out ‘cause he couldn’t handle it, didn’t you, Harold?” Zayn smirks, sitting atop the counter like a self-important house cat. Harry doesn’t even bother with a glance in his direction. He just looks up at the ceiling, bored.

“Fuck off, Z."

"So, uh, you know each other from uni, then?”

At this, Harry looks at the ground and Zayn shakes his head. “Naw,” Zayn smirks again. “He dated my sister. Didn’t end well, but I thought he was alright, so when he dropped out of uni I took him under my wing.”

“You did _not_ take me under your wing.”

“Who pays the rent again?”

“I pay some of it,” Harry mutters, rolling his eyes and looking sullen. He turns to Niall. “He didn’t take me under his wing. He has no wings with which to take me under.”

Niall snorts at this and seems to shake his head at the whole scene. “Alright. You are an aspiring musician who left Cambridge. And you are an aspiring actor who thinks cereal is a metaphor for life. And you live together. Am I right? Because if I am, you two need a sitcom. Hi-jinks and misunderstandings abound.”

Harry laughs, and jumps to flick the side of Zayn’s nose when he looks affronted.

“Cereal is not a joke,” Zayn grumbles, defiant. “And not aspiring; I’ve done an advert.”

Harry snorts beside him again, as his idea of accomplishment doesn’t exactly extend to fried fish sticks commercials.

“But yes,” Zayn explains, “the overlooked balance of metaphorical milk and cereal in our everyday lives is the focus of my current play. I’m planning on getting it produced, now that I’ve got an official agent and all. It will be an inspiring and comical look on modern society, starring myself as all three roles.” He looks quite proud, and also like he’s practiced that speech for a long time for someone to say it to, and Harry refrains from asking just what exactly those three roles are. “Call it, _Looking Into the Milky Way._ Get it, like Milky Way...milk...like cereal...It’s clever,” he adds, like he’s confident that it’s clever and other people just need to be told.

“Interesting,” says Niall politely. And then as Zayn literally starts staring off into the distance to marvel at his own genius, Niall glances at Harry with a confused look, and Harry beams and drapes his arm around Niall’s shoulder because it was that confused look of Niall’s that he really likes.

“So," Harry asks. His low voice reverberates a bit onto Niall’s skin. "How are you feeling?” Harry’s lips almost ghost over the boy’s earlobe when he leans in close, and he’s not entirely sure whether it was unintentional.

“Better,” Niall affirms, just as quietly as Harry, like their conversation is, for some reason, secret. “You were right, it was food-poisoning. And Liam’s probably gonna want a new Kate Upton poster.”

“Mm?”

“I may have _accidentally_ aimed at it when I got sick.”

Harry breathes out through his nose in appreciation. “I do like that shirt on you,” he mumbles in an afterthought, nodding to the oversized t-shirt of his that’s covering the boy’s body. It’s his favorite, soft from many washes and with the Eagles ‘75 logo only barely faded, but he can’t help but want to let Niall keep it permanently.

“Whoever bought it must’ve had good taste,” Niall mutters back, raising an eyebrow before he laughs a little. “Sorry I’m wearing it. It...smelled good.” Harry’s quick laughter in response finally brings Zayn back to them.

“Laughing at me?” Zayn asks ardently, furrowing his thick eyebrows. “This is real important stuff, Harold, and if you just took your head out of your arse long enough to realize--!”

“Oh, chill, mate,” Harry sighs, knowing this isn’t going to go anywhere but a shove or a shin kick at most.

“No, it’s alright,” Niall interjects. “I’m...kind of in theatre, too. Louis kind of dragged me in.”

Harry’s eyebrows raise way up into his hair, but Zayn looks incredibly pleased. “One of my own!” he exclaims, delighted and pulling on Niall’s arm so that Harry’s hand falls through empty air as he’s jerked away. “Musicals?”

Niall fervently shakes his head no and explains that it’s a bit of an overstatement because he just does lighting and sometimes set design, and it’s his _friend_ who’s in it really, but Zayn isn’t deterred. “Ah. C’mon, Niall, I need to show you my workspace.”

He shoots a fake-angry glance over his shoulder at Harry, who’s now standing alone by the kitchen table in his green flannel shirt and rolled up jeans like someone who’s just had the rug pulled out from under him. Which feels for some reason about right. He shoots a possibly-not-quite-as-fake-angry glance back.

“Maybe you’ll appreciate my work,” Zayn mutters loudly to Niall, making faces at Harry that Harry is only too willing to return. Zayn turns back around and puts his hand on the small of Niall’s back, leading him into his small closet-size bedroom and closing the door, and Harry frantically pushes down that little flame of _something_ brooding in his chest.

Grabbing his one remaining book from the kitchen table, he maybe closes his door a bit too hard on the way to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weLLP ok feedback would be very nice but u no you don't have to and um thank you for reading and i've started binge-watching teenwolf this weekend so yeAH that's my excuse for not posting this earlier heh ehe heh hehe 
> 
> iALRIGHTY BYE


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I AM STILL ALIVE
> 
> i am so sO terrible at updating and I am so so sososo sorry but i haven't forgotten about this story it's literally the guilt of not updating that is making me post this while in the midst of aps
> 
> soon i'll be graduating (like before the end of may soon) and then it will b a whole new world an there will be updates without the length of the ice age between them and every1 will be happy and lovely and beautiful i am soryr

The lecture hall at the University of Glasgow is illogically warm and humid for a room with such a tall ceiling and no heating system, so of course most of the students in the university agree that it’s a sign the hall (and the curriculum taught within it) may just be that much closer to Hell than the rest of the school. Niall is one of those students.

He surreptitiously tries to unzip his sweatshirt as he slips further down in his seat on Monday afternoon, trying to be inconspicuous. The zipper snags and he mutters out several curses -- he hears Louis snickering beside him.

Small beads of sweat start to form at his hairline. This is not humane.

The water stains on the ceiling are getting less and less interesting the more he stares at them, trying desperately to distract himself from the lecture, so he starts disinterestedly tracing his eyes along the faux-wood grain of his small desk. That is, until he can feel a small drip of sweat creeping down the slope of his nose. He ought to get an award for his level of patience.

“Come on!” the voice in the front of the classroom shouts, jerking him momentarily out of his tragic struggle. “What was he saying about sexuality? Remember what we talked about last class, his personal struggles throughout his life? How does that apply to Chillingworth?”

The lecture hall is deadly quiet, and Niall slides so far down that his eyes can barely see over his desk. Maybe he can just slip out of his seat entirely and disappear forever into the dark underground world, live with the worms and ants --

“No takers? None? Think about it.” Mr. Jacobs frowns like a slightly disappointed grandfather, returns to his desk grudgingly. “In the meantime, we move on to Hester and Dimmesdale. Obviously, they’re parallels to Adam and Eve of the Bible -- perhaps a subconscious move by Hawthorne, but nonetheless an apt example of the frequent religious references throughout -- but what do their sins, what does their corruption, result in?”

Mr. Jacobs’ eyes scan the room slowly, scrutinizing, and Niall, who’s now nothing more than a sweaty tuft of blonde hair behind a desk, feels their gaze before he sees them. 

“Mr. Horan?” he booms loudly. “Care to explain to the class what Hester and Dimmy gain from their sins?”

Niall closes his eyes. He may as well be in primary school. Reluctantly, he pulls himself back into a sitting position and searches his brain for some well-worded bullshit.

“Um…um. Empathy?” 

Inwardly, he laughs to himself. Nice.

“They gain empathy,” Mr. Jacobs repeats flatly. His rotund stomach stretches his suspenders nearly to their snapping point as he puts his small, chubby hands on his hips. “Empathy for whom, Mr. Horan? Or for what?”

“For…their fellow sinners. Fellow man.”

(Actually, yeah, Niall thinks, didn’t Harry say something about that when they were talking about it? When Zayn had gone to the bathroom?)

“Is that it?”

“And…knowledge?”

“Knowledge. Interesting. Why do they gain knowledge, Mr. Horan?”

Why. He doesn’t fucking know why. Niall’s mind lands back on damning the entire department to hell as he sits there in the pointed silence, but then, Harry -- “Because, erm, as they fall from grace to damnation, they gain knowledge of what it means to be immoral. And how it doesn’t take one form. It’s in all of us, always.”

Mr. Jacobs finally stops bouncing on the balls of his fat little feet and stares at him intently. “Explain?”

“The scarlet letter,” Niall says awkwardly, trying to remember the exact words that Harry had murmured over his cup of tea nearly a week ago. “It, um, ostracizes Hester from society, right, so, being separate from it, she can see her society for what it really is.” Niall pauses and gulps. “Hypocritical, and just as immoral as the woman they kicked out.”

Mr. Jacobs stares at him for a couple seconds, and then laughs. “Good, Mr. Horan,” he says slowly. Niall’s shoulders visibly relax. “I’d like to see more of that kind of thinking on your essays.” With squinted eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses, he lifts a finger to point in Niall’s direction. “Execution. Remember that. Execution is what you need to work on. Follow through.”

Niall kind of wants to kill him for calling him out in front of so many people, but figures there're too many witnesses, so Mr. Jacobs eyes him for a moment before starting up his lecture again.

Eventually, his words jumble and mix back into background noise as Niall slips down in his seat again, Louis laughing silently beside him. At least he knows it was bullshit.

-

“Hello?”  
Muddy brown grass squelches beneath their shoes as Louis and Niall cross the campus green, the cool, sticky air gusting past them and waving the branches of the few old trees around him. Niall pulls the phone away from his ear, then looks around him in alarm like he’s about to be Punk’d.

“How the fuck d’you get my number?” he asks, wildly confused. Louis looks up with interest.

“I just thought you should know that you’re welcome to come back whenever.”

“Zayn -- that’s -- lovely, thank you, but?”

Louis mouths a curious, ‘Zayn?’

“And Harry has a gig this weekend. We thought you should come and see it.”

“Okay?” Niall tries to decide whether he should be calling the cops or be thinking of the twelve different ways Zayn might have meant 'we' -- was Harry included in that we, does Harry want to see him again, did Harry think of him, Harry, Harry, Harry -- and he kind of can’t decide so just goes, “Where?”

Louis leans in to try and hear what Zayn is saying. Niall decides to retract everything he ever said about Louis not being a terrible friend.

Louis. His mental note of setting up Louis with Zayn comes back to him. Not that he’d immediately assume Zayn is gay, but he did just out and say it back when they were eating cupcakes. So.

That thought is what makes him cut Zayn off in the middle of his sentence about how the flow of energy in the pub is really nice and totally helps the band with that one song about the universe, and makes him just go, “Yeah, okay. I'll go.”

“Yes, mate!” Zayn exclaims loudly. Niall thinks he can hear Harry’s scratchy voice in the background telling him to stop talking to himself, but Zayn doesn’t notice and continues, “Since you kind of passed out drunk at the last one.”

Louis hears this and raises his eyebrows up past his hairline.

Niall wonders what the hell kind of friends it seems he’s started to make here, but can’t help but laugh anyway.

Zayn just sternly tells him not to bring anything but sobriety “and a fucking lot of energy. And your I.D., of course. ‘Cause it’s not like we’re planning on staying sober. Are you legal? I've got a mate with a few fake ones--”

“Zayn,” Niall starts before he hangs up, Louis egging him on, “Zayn, d’you mind if I bring a friend along?”

“A friend? No, sorry. No friends allowed.”

Niall blanches and Louis harrumphs.

“Oh--”

“Seriously? You believed that? It’s totally fine. See you and your friend on Saturday.”

And then there’s a click and Zayn hangs up, and slowly, Niall turns to face Louis. His arms are folded and his eyes are amused and suspicious and mischievous and excited all at the same time, and Niall loves him a little bit. “So,” he drawls, pursing his lips. “Who was that?”

Niall just grabs him in a hug and leads them to the coffee shop across the green, finally spilling everything, smiling the whole way.

 

-

 

“There’s something up with you.”

Liam pops his head over the edge of Niall’s bunk, staring through the mess of wires he’s attached to his own head, and sets his eyes on Niall. The rain outside is pouring buckets and hitting the windowpane next to them with a sort of inhuman, inescapable force, and Niall momentarily wonders whether Liam’s moods are capable of controlling the weather.

“What’re you…”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Suddenly, he shoves a sheet of paper into Niall’s face, and the boy has to reluctantly pull out his earphones. “See this?” Liam pushes, pointing to a random spot on what looks like a graph.

“No.”

“It’s a spike in your dopamine levels. I need to know what happened in order to properly go through with my experiment. What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing happened.” Niall shoves his earphones back in with a roll of his eyes, and goes back to watching Chuck -- no, he is not ashamed -- on his laptop. When his laptop is slammed shut by a big hand, though, he might kill someone.

“Niall,” the brown-eyed boy warns, “tell me what you’re not telling me. What happened on…” he looks back at the graph. “Tuesday afternoon?”

Niall glares at him -- the fucking helmet apparently does work -- and answers him with as much sarcasm as he can muster. “I went to the grocery store. Dunno if you’re implying that buying produce gives me some sort of sexual satisfaction,” he spits, “but I can assure you it doesn’t.” With an accomplished snort, he opens up his laptop again, but Liam shuts it just as quickly. Niall might genuinely be capable of committing murder right now.

“I am not going to let you mess up my experiment,” Liam growls. “I will call your mum, you know. Your mum loves me.” (It’s true, which is disgusting -- they met on the first day and Liam helped unpack Niall’s things in a ploy to win her favor, probably for future blackmail, and the reminder still makes Niall inwardly shiver.)

“Go ahead,” he sighs, slowly bringing a foot around to shove Liam’s face off the bed. Liam smells it coming and gags, hopping off and stumbling onto the floor. Niall is quietly victorious and opens his laptop again.

“Tell me,” Liam whines.

“Nothing to tell,” Niall singsongs. “Let me be, heathen.”

“Your dopamine level was about the same as someone about to ride a rollercoaster,” Liam continues, staring at the graph again. “Either my equipment’s faulty, or there’s something you’re not telling me, because I know how much you do love food but that is just impossible.”

“Guess I’m just an impossibly huge food lover, then.” Niall clicks play and settles back in his couch to watch Chuck Bartowski learn he can do kung fu. He plays oblivious to Liam’s glare.

“You suck, Niall Horan.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.” Liam grabs the helmet from off his head and plugs it into his own laptop, huffily going over the readings again. “This doesn’t make sense!” he shouts after a few minutes, staring at the results again. “Why are the readings wrong?”

“Maybe you just suck at making brain wave helmets.”

“No I do not! Shut up!”

Niall happily accepts the order for silence. Liam stomps out of the room, dragging his helmet behind.

 

-

 

Maybe it’s because he really hates his roommate as much as he says.

Or he’s only got twenty-four hours to live and he’s come back to admit his love for him. Ha. Ha.

Maybe it’s because he forgot something important the last time he was here and needs to get it back. (Which wouldn’t be it, because he’s checked the flat over multiple times just for something he might’ve dropped that would give Harry the excuse to return it to him and he couldn’t find anything.)

No, wait, crap, maybe’s he’s returning the shirt.

He’s probably returning the shirt.

Of course he's not here because he likes him because that doesn't make sense because he's nothing but madman with a shabby flat and annoyingly strong opinions and some crap hobbies.

But when he sees Niall walking in the door of their restaurant a little cautiously at around seven o’clock with a friend -- he is vehemently denying any other possibility -- next Saturday night, Harry might be vying for the second one.

That is, until Zayn comes bounding out of nowhere and pulls his pretty Niall into an ecstatic hug.

He can feel Josh’s eyes on his back, can feel the smirk on the drummer’s lips, but he doesn’t look up as he plugs in the amp and forcefully adjusts the dials.

Harry can’t help but overhear their conversation for the next few minutes, despite the overwhelming din of the crowd; it’s completely not eavesdropping if he can’t help it. The three of them have immediately launched into theatre, alright then, and did you know that the friend -- no, look at the fondness on Niall's face, they are definitely boyfriends with a healthy sense of commitment and dedication and have been together for seven years -- directs the plays sometimes, and then they're talking about uni, and how happy they are that exams are over and how Zayn can relate, and their newly discovered shared love for terrible, gory, action movies, and how they should all see one sometime. And all these things they all three have in common, and they don't mention Harry's name once.

Not that he was hoping, but. 

The friend is basically a Zayn 2.0, all interesting and spontaneous and cool, so no wonder it’s been ten minutes and Niall hasn’t bothered to say hello to him. He hears the friend going on some story about riding a horse across the Grand Canyon and then Zayn pitches in about a time he backpacked across Europe, and, yeah, they’ve got him beat. He’s not even a contender at this point. He scratches his head and reminds himself to never mention the fact that he just grew up in Cheshire and his mother is an accountant and he’s never left the United Kingdom. (Unless you count the time he had to accompany his parents on their second honeymoon to Paris, which he doesn’t, because it was disgusting and scarring and the noises he heard through the wall, oh god, no no no, he can’t think about it, and it all ended in a divorce somehow, anyway. The therapy bills he’ll need to pay for that trip someday will be astronomically large.)

Of course, the only time he sees Niall look like he pays Harry any attention at all in the next two hours is during his gig, which isn't even a surprise because he is doing pretty god awful and that generally gets people's attention. Harry keeps forgetting to watch where his fingers are on the fretboard and is instead glancing toward Niall's foot tapping absently to the beat. The only saving grace is his voice, and eventually people get bored enough with the off-beat guitar that they turn around and he can calm his nerves again.

After the show, which ends with an off chord and gets a few splattered applauses but is mostly just ignored entirely, Harry all but leaps off the stage and starts furiously packing up his equipment.

Sullenly he notices Niall talking with Josh and Zayn and the long-term boyfriend of seven years at the bar. The long-term boyfriend of seven years is reasonably attractive, tiny and with gingery brown hair and bright blue eyes that almost rival Niall's, and he figures he should go over there because he's got no chance against this boy but Harry's never been one for doing the rational thing. 

He'll say something, introduce himself. (Get Zayn and the boyfriend together so Niall realizes he's a terrible boyfriend after all with, actually, no sense of commitment, and he falls into Harry's arms -- what no, ha, no.)

But then he genuinely stops halfway between strolling over there and slinging a territorial arm around Niall’s shoulders because suddenly Josh has his arm around Niall’s shoulders instead and is leading all of them out the door, clearly to the twenty-four-seven deli down the street. Josh’s general rule is hate everyone until they give you a reason to like them. So this is an incredibly startling development.

And why didn’t they bring Harry? Rude.

He doesn’t get to follow them though, because they’re already gone, out of sight. Just like that, a perfectly good opportunity to go speak and talk to his pretty little blushing Niall is gone.

He has to move on because he's never going to see him again, yes, good, play it cool. Whatever.

Whatever is his new life motto. "Whatever," he says to two people staring at him.

He drags all of the band stuff to the back room where the barmaid lets them stash it, and then grabs his guitar and goes to bury himself in his room. The semi-interested glances of the pub girls with their mascara and short dresses go completely unnoticed as he rushes past them and up the stairs, his head a mantra of whatever, whatever, whatever.

 

-

 

“So he was cute, right?”

“Who? Harry?”

“Zayn.” Louis flops down on Liam’s bed, scrolling lazily through his phone. “No, more than cute, he was a fucking god.”

“I guess,” Niall says. “Wasn’t really paying attention. So you like him, then? Told you you would.”

“It’s a possibility,” Louis says vaguely. He’s got the Louis face on, though, so Niall knows an intricate plan is forming to win him over. Most likely involving dancers. Confetti, possibly.

“But Harry, though. What'd you think of him?”

“Still can’t believe you two slept together. You lucky bastard.”

“We didn’t sleep -- it’s not like we did anything, we literally just slept together. No -- I mean, we just -- we didn't. Do that. So you like him, then?”

“He’s got the whole quiet, sexy rocker thing going for him.” Louis half-heartedly checks the time on the bedside table. “I ought to do my work one of these days.” Then he laughs and goes back to scrolling his phone while Niall half-works on his problem set for his angular kinematics unit. Why Johnny the discus player is whirling a 780 N (read: roughly 79.5 kilogram, which is impossible) discus in a semicircular motion with no immediate plan to actually throw it, he has no idea. Johnny's a fucking idiot and needs to learn some priorities. Like talking about Harry.

"Lou, but did you hear his voic--"

“What are you doing on my bed?” Liam spits as he walks through their door, dropping his bag on the ground and looking positively huffy at the whole scene. Niall can't be bothered to even roll his eyes.

“It’s not like he’s smoking a bowl in here.”

"Yeah," Louis adds in a perfect deadpan, "we promised we wouldn't do that anymore."

“Off,” Liam demands. He kicks off his boots and goes to grab Louis’ arm. “If this is some subconscious desire, then I’m willing to talk--.”

“Getting off!” Louis shouts, jumping up and swerving around the bigger boy to grab his jacket from the desk chair. “I’ll leave you to your perverted thoughts, Payne.”

“Excuse me?”

“Coming, Niall?”

Niall grabs his jacket too and drops down off his bunk. Johnny the discus player will have to wait. “See you, Liam.”

Liam just harrumphs and zips open his bag to pull out several textbooks. “Don’t hurry back,” he grumbles under his breath. Just as they’re closing the door, Niall catches a glimpse of him climbing up the ladder to Niall’s bunk.

“Did you see that!” he exclaims, turning to Louis. “Such a fucking hypocrite!”

“An abomination to the human race,” Louis agrees. “He must be neutralized.”

“For the good of the world.”

“For the good of the humanity.”

“You really think he’s a sexy rocker type? I pegged him as more of a sexy literary buff myself, but maybe that’s just me...”

Louis raises an eyebrow as they stroll down the hall to the stairs. “You need a plan,” he decides once they reach the staircase.

“A plan?”

“To win him over. Avoiding him completely and seeing if he gets jealous didn’t work, so. A new plan. To see if he does have a thing for you.”

“A new plan. Yeah, okay.” Niall’s completely on board, until he remembers he’s talking to Louis Tomlinson here. “No, no more plans, Lou, remember Ibiza--”

“We never speak of Ibiza.”

“I’m just saying, Lou, they don’t always work. How about no plan, and I just tell him how I feel?”

Louis blanches, as shocked as if he’s just lost his friend to the circus. “That’s a dumb plan. A very, very boring plan,” he reprimands, “and quite frankly I’m disappointed in your entirely unnecessary mature approach to this situation.” By now, they’re out on the street in front of their complex and walking into the city, their sneakered feet instinctively deciding that today is a day for coffee and pastries at eleven in the morning, and heading toward the place around the corner. “I don’t like your plan at all.”

“Lou.” The two of them separate and sidestep a hand-in-hand couple walking the other direction, and Niall is suddenly feeling the need to punch someone in the face once they reattach at the shoulder. “I don’t even know if Harry wants to see me again,” he mutters, glancing back to see the girl press a kiss to her boyfriend’s cheek, “let alone have feelings for me. This isn’t gonna happen.”

“Ugh,” Louis groans. “Feelings. What do feelings have to do with it? He’s hot, you want him, and he kept checking you out. That’s all you need, really.”

“He was not checking me out,” Niall snorts, dismissive. “If anything, I was staring at him.”

“True,” Louis agrees simply. “You were. It was a bit embarrassing, really. I’m surprised he didn’t notice. But you should have seen him when you left.”

“Why? What was he doing?”

“Looking at you like he was about to run after you and proclaim his neverending love for you. To put it in a nutshell.”

“Lou!”

“I’m not kidding! He had the love eyes. The seeing-if-he-gets-jealous part didn’t happen, but all I’m saying is, he probably likes you. If you don’t want to go for it, whatever. But what am I going to do about Zayn?”

Niall frowns, thinking, before he suddenly has the most wonderful idea (i.e.: bad). “Know what?” he pipes up, “I can be your wingman. We should plan something; all you theatre people are putting on the spring show next week, so why don’t we invite them?”

“What, Harry and Zayn?”

“No, Liam and the entire Payne extended family. Yes, Harry and Zayn. Zayn wants to be an actor, so. Him plus you plus the mutual interest of theatre equals good, yeah?”

“Not a bad idea, Horan. Not a bad idea at all. Or should I say: plan.”

Opening the door for them that leads into the small and toasty cafe, Niall rolls his eyes. “It’s not a plan. At least not until we involve the mariachi band--.” That gets the response he was looking for.

“WE NEVER SPEAK OF IBIZA!” Louis flushes, angry and embarrassed from the horrific memory.

“He would have given you his number if you just hadn’t brought in the personalized balloon parade--"

“STOP--”

“And the vintage Chateau Margaux--”

“Horan, I will rip your eyeballs out through your ears and make you eat them," he whispers threateningly. "Two tall Chai Tea Lattees, thanks. Skim milk.”

“We’re not Starbucks. You mean small?” Louis silences the barista with a glare and some pursed lips. “...Anything else, sir?”

“Horan?”

Looking toward the display, Niall tries to find something suitable. “Um,” he says, pointing, “that.”

“You don’t like cupcakes, Horan.”

“Stop calling me Horan?”

“You don’t like cupcakes, Niall.”

“‘Course I do, doesn’t everyone? Butterscotch...you know, is my favorite.” Niall stares at the tip jar, avoiding Louis’ truth-inducing gaze as they wait for their orders. “So, um, about that essay in Jacobs.”

Something in Louis suddenly clicks. “This is about him again!” Clearly, his embarrassment has faded and he’s back on the plan track.

“The essay?” 

“Yes, you idiot, I’m talking about the essay. The cupcakes, dumbass. You’re so obsessed with him!”

“Two Chai Teas?”

Quickly grabbing the two steaming cups, Niall says his thanks to the barista (can you call them baristas if you're not at Starbucks? Niall doesn't care) and sets them down on the counter, suddenly very interested in fitting them properly with cardboard holders. “No, I’m not.”

“Gary, isn’t it?”

“Harry,” he quickly corrects, before realizing his mistake. 

“Aha. You are so in love, Niall, it’s adorably embarrassing.”

“Says Mr. I Got Your Room Number From The Front Desk By Telling Them We Were Engaged,” he mutters, raising a challenging eyebrow at his best friend.

“I SAID WE NEVER SPEAK OF IT!” Louis shouts, stealing his cup from Niall’s hand and slapping the back of the blonde boy’s head a bit too aggressively. 

"I'm Louis," Niall snickers, "Louis Lane. Will you be my superma--"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT JESUS FUCKING IBIZA, NIALL FUCKING HORAN!"

The café's buzz of conversation dies down a little. Burning red, Louis grabs Niall's arm and paces out of the shop, and Niall's sure the boy wants to kill him, so he definitely keeps on laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh btw i have a tumblr!! talk to me on there or here or bug me to update or anything!! nO ONE TALKS 2 ME ON THERE 
> 
> thank you for reading!!
> 
>  
> 
> [this is my tumblr](http://www.getyouwhateverthepayne.tumblr.com)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I MADE A MISTAKE IN THE LAST CHAPTER: LOUIS IS HOLDING THE AUDITIONS FOR THE SPRING ZOMBIE SHOW NEXT WEEK, NOT THE ACTUAL SHOW
> 
> i completely forgot i wrote that scene where zayn said he was auditioning for it oops so that's why
> 
> also this chapter focuses a bit more on zayn and louis?? also if any of you want to come up with a name for the play....that'd be nice
> 
> sorry if this is terrible and a little bit short for some reason im really busy
> 
> :-]

"I met Louis Tomlinson."

"Did you." Harry silently punches the air because oh, it wasn't a dedicated boyfriend of seven years after all. Yes, yes, yes! Wait, none of this matters. That cupcake boy is not important. Your mantra is Whatever. Okay.

"Louis Tomlinson has seen my face."

"Wow." There's a short silence punctuated by the sticky sound of paint rolling up against the wall.

"I love Niall."

This catches Harry's attention. "Erm, what?"

"'Cause he didn't say anything to Louis about how I knew him, clearly."

"Oh." Duh.

"I probably should have asked for his number, yeah?"

"Probably." Harry's gone back to mild disinterest.

"I've got Niall's number, though."

There's a clearing of his throat. "You what?"

"Yeah, stole it off his phone," Zayn explains, flicking through his contacts to show to Harry. It's saved as _Niall ??????._ "Thought I might need it."

"That's such an invasion of boundaries, Zayn." Harry's not sure what he's saying, because number. Niall. Niall's number.

"Yeah, he thought about the same thing when I called him."

Harry blanches. "When the fuck'd you call him?"

"To ask him to the gig!"

"That's why he was there?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." _Whatever._ "Whatever."

Zayn laughs, but soon starts pacing again. "I wasn't embarrassing or anything. Was I? I acted like I didn't know who he was."

"You're never not embarrassing." But Harry's still reeling, not really paying attention to the insult coming out of his mouth, because Zayn's got his number, it's right there, probably in his pocket, a way to reach him. He could call--

"Can't believe I've held a conversation with Louis Tomlinson."

"Neat-o."

In his mind he's measuring the distance between his free hand and Zayn's crotch and every possible way to avoid it if he lunges for the pocket right now.

"And he laughed at a joke of mine."

"Did he?"

"I'm on speaking terms with--"

"Louis Tomlinson?"

"I may cry."

"He's a sophomore." Harry eyes him, forgetting about the phone for a second because Zayn really looks like a mess about this.

"Age is but a number, Haz," Zayn tries, "and I really...I can't believe I _met_..him...god. Watch; I'm crying."

Harry looks up. "Shit, you actually are." Tears are welling up in the corners of Zayn's eyes.

"I met him. Can you believe it, Harry?"

"You need to calm down."

"I am calm." Zayn is sniffling.

Harry shakes his head and finally puts down the paint roller and turns away from the now half Peachy Pale kitchen wall. "Are you still auditioning for that zombie play, then?"

Zayn's eyes go huge and he gasps. "The play," he breathes. "No, no no no no--"

"What?"

"I can't--act, in front...of him."

"Why not?" Harry snorts and resumes painting the wall. "Even I'll admit you're good. Sometimes. And Nick will kill you if you don't. Oh, by the way, the rent came in the mail, haven't opened it yet."

"I don't care about my manager, I seriously don't wanna do it, 'cause I hate acting in front of people I know, not you, but, I'll just feel like an idiot?"

"Do it, Zayn!" Before Harry starts on the second coat, he takes a step back to stand beside Zayn and cross his arms to admire his handwork. Their landlady is the owner of the pub downstairs, and she's nice enough to not say anything when she smells paint fumes coming from their apartment every odd week, so he figures it's okay. "What do you think?"

"I liked it white."

"It was eggshell, twat."

"The rent came, you said?" Harry nods toward the kitchen table, and Zayn makes an unhappy face and grabs it. "You're def paying half this time, we can't keep not paying enough every--." He stops.

"Zayn?"

"I."

"What is it?"

"You'll need to pick up a few more gigs this week, Haz," he says weakly.

"How much?" Harry is braced for the worst.

"One, um, thousand."

"One thousand _pounds?"_

Zayn just nods. Harry's mouth has dropped.

"How much have we got saved?"

"Bout half, I'd say? It says we've got two weeks." Zayn starts looking around the flat as if it's the last time he'll ever see it. Harry thinks he hears him murmuring apologies to the furniture, and now he's walking to the window and looking out over the street like they're in the emotional climax of a film. "I've always liked this view," Zayn mumbles miserably. He strokes the slightly dirty pane with a single finger.

The shit Harry has to put up with living with an actor.

"Zayn, chill out. I've got some money saved--."

"You know what that's for."

"I can call Gemma." Zayn just laughs at that. "I'll call Lou, then, she can help me out." Already, he's got his phone in his hands. "She'll always pay a little extra for a gig if I beg enough. In the meantime," he says with a shove to Zayn's slumped shoulders, "get practicing."

"Wha'?" It looks like someone's just told Zayn his entire family has simultaneously exploded and he's meant to go to the moon tomorrow.

"The play!" Harry exclaims. "It's Monday and the auditions are Friday, yeah?"

"Maybe?"

"And since you've got Ni--, erm, that boy's number, the one with the blonde hair, can't remember his name--"

"Niall?"

"Yeah, you can call him and see if he'll help you prepare."

"Why him?"

"It'll get you in with Louis Tomlinson, won't it?"

Zayn gets a little smile on his face and steps away from the window. "Sometimes I forget you got into Cambridge."

Harry laughs loudly. "I'm a genius, yeah, yeah, I know, now call him, ask him over!"

But Zayn, being the ever-perceptive twat, narrows his eyes a little. "You're awfully excited about this. You never like people over. Is it him? I know you thought he was just cute, but..."

"Can't I ever try to help you without being psychoanalyzed?" Harry's stiff tone is just noticeable. Zayn seems to give up and let it be.

"Alright. Alright, yeah, I'll call him. Thanks, Haz." He hugs him tightly and leaves, rubbing his hair and muttering Hamlet's soliloquoy under his breath. It's become a soothing technique for him, and Harry knows when he hears it that Zayn is on A Mission.

With butterflies in his stomach -- definitely not from the anticipation of that boy maybe coming over, nope, because his new life motto is whatever, remember, he doesn't care about the boy he knows nothing about, except for what he looks like when he sleeps -- ah, shit -- he starts on his second coat.

A few minutes later, he finds he's laboring over the grime on the window pane, trying to make it spotless.

He'd never really appreciated the view.

 

-

 

“You look out of it.”

“What?”

“I said you look out of it!”

“Liam, if you don’t mind, I’d really just like some peace and--.”

“You can tell me what’s on your mind, you know. I’m training to be--.”

“Be a psychologist, yeah, I get it. And that’s nice and all, but I really would like to just sit here and work on my paper, if that’s alright with you.”

Niall rolls back in his chair and takes a sip from his beer. The air conditioning in their dorm room is on full blast, thanks to Niall’s hope that it might deter Liam from trying to speak over it, but all that’s happened is a louder Liam and a colder Niall.

“What paper?”

Outside, there are a few girls blasting that crappy pop band that's always on the radio, savoring the first nice day of spring and sunbathing in their bikinis. Niall's ears have been suffering. He's already in a bad mood. “Does it matter?” he spits.

“Jacobs’ paper? Oh, I already finished it,” Liam exclaims. “You know, Niall, procrastination isn’t good for your mental health. There have been multiple studies that prove that. Sophia agrees with me, you know.”

“I’ll be able to work on it as soon as we stop talking, Liam.”

“But you haven’t typed anything for the past thirteen minutes.”

“Thir-…You _counted!”_

Liam ignores this. “You should probably get to work on that paper, Ni. You only have two more weeks.”

“THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!”

Liam smiles, obliviously condescending. “Getting out anger is good, Ni, but you shouldn’t direct it towards people who aren’t the reason for that anger. It’s a good way to lose friends.”

“I’M NOT -- _you’re_ the -- I just -- _fine,_ Liam. You are so completely right. Thank you.”

“Any time.”

“Can I work on my paper now?”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea. I just want you -- to do well, you know. Also in a few days, would you mind doing that video game part of my study? I really need it A.S.A.P.” He says each letter individually, enunciating each and finishing with a polish.

Niall tries not to explode as he snaps his laptop shut and carries it out of the room. Feeling the simper Liam’s giving him from behind, he hurries as quickly as possible out of his sight.

Then he returns, throws a book at him, and runs.

 

-

 

Into Louis.

"Alright, mate?" his friend asks, steadying him from toppling towards the bulletin board stacked with flyers. A couple people sitting in the halls snort at him. Niall knows he and Liam are the laughing stock of the floor.

He blames Liam.

"Hey, Lou. What're you doing here?"

Louis smirks and hooks his arm through Niall's. "I was just going to text you about it, but you were being a little fucker who wouldn't answer their phone, so."

"Essay," is all Niall says, stepping over the various crossed legs and feet of the people in the hall to keep up with his friend's pace. Why the fuck Louis acts like he's speed-walking for a place in the Olympics, Niall doesn't know.

"So," Louis starts airily, hopping down the stairs and bringing them both outside past the sunbathing girls, "I've got more to the plan."

"No fucking plans, Lou." Niall tries to stop in his tracks from indignation, but he fails quite valiantly when Louis starts to literally drag him behind.

"Hey, Niall!" shouts one girl, someone from his physics class, waving and pulling off her sunglasses to look at him passing by. "How's LIAM?"

Niall also knows half the floor is betting on whether he and Liam are secretly fucking.

He just fake-laughs in response, waiting until after she smiles and lays back down to flip her off. Louis smirks. "You'd think they'd think you were fucking me," he says lightly. "I am the gay one, after all."

Niall just grunts. "Just tell me the plan, Louis."

"Right, so it's...erm, it's not my best. Well. Instead of just asking Zayn to audition, offer to practice with him, too? Here? Like, at uni? Where I can...see him?"

"You came all the way here just to make sure that I not only ask _Zayn_ to audition, like we hadn't already agreed I would, but that I also ask _Zayn_ to practice with me? You fucker, this has nothing to do with a plan for Harry. You just want to drool over your own personal Greek god," Niall laughs.

They're almost at the theatre practice space -- god knows how Niall didn't notice Louis leading them there, probably to ask him for some technical help instead of paying an actual technician -- and multiple people are coming up to Louis with notes in their hands and desperate attempts to kiss his ass for a spot in the play. He shakes them off with the air of a celebrity and a wave of the hand. Most are leaving with hearts in their eyes. Niall's impressed, to be quite honest. He wishes he had the same effect on people.

"He's perfect for the role!" Louis exclaims, blushing at the cheeks. "Have you seen him? He'd make the perfect Matthew. Like. Jesus. He's a gift from the gods. D'you know if he can sing?"

"This a musical now?"

Louis clears his throat. "Possibly. Oh! New addition to the plan, you could ask your Hazza friend to compose some songs. If, you know, he's interested."

Niall avoids that part. "Maybe. Oh, did I mention Zayn already knew who you were? Nearly died when I said we were friends."

"Did he?" Louis says airily, hiding the deepening blush behind a script some boy's just handed him. He pretends to divulge himself in the papers, but then suddenly catches glimpse of what he's actually pretending to read. "No, no, this is all wrong. There's so many mistakes, Cal, what've you been doing! I'm telling you," he says to Niall, "it's impossible to write a proper story when there's a deadline. So many loose ends......No, Cal, fucking christ, Matthew's not even a zombie yet! Why's he eating Caroline's brains?"

Cal looks horrified, and Niall feels a little bad. He's only a freshman.

"Anyway," Louis says, all but throwing the paper back in Cal's face and pushing through the double doors that lead to the stage. "You've got his number, just ask him about practicing. It'll give you an excuse to see Harry more if his friend's in the play. Subtle, but flawless." Niall trails behind him, weighing the options, but he knows he's just as much of an ass kisser to Louis as the rest of the university and by now he's just delaying the inevitable.

Honestly, sometimes Niall questions his life choices. He hikes his backpack up higher on his shoulder and follows Louis onto the stage, and for some reason, he suddenly can't get Liam's words about the essay out of his head. Two weeks. Two bloody weeks.

 

-

 

He's fixing the lights, the ones that exploded right over Cal about twenty minutes ago and made the boy run to the bathroom with one hand hiding a curiously stained-looking pair of trousers and come back wearing shorts, standing precariously on a ladder about fifteen feet above the stage and tuning out the shrill demands of an increasingly frantic Louis, when his pocket buzzes and Justin Timberlake busts out with Sexy Back.

"Shit!" Niall jumps and scrambles his hands for purchase on something as the ladder starts swaying back and forth, and the previously bustling room is horrendously silent, Louis watching from the ground as the edges of the ladder nearly catch on the freshly painted apocalyptic scene behind him. Niall grabs onto the thick blue curtains beside him, slipping down a few inches and sliding and feeling the rug burn as the ladder finally disappears from beneath his feet and comes crashing down about two inches to the left of a frozen Louis. Miraculously, the apocalypse scene goes by unharmed, but the same cannot be said for Niall.

There's a loud thump as his hands give up and he crashes to the ground. His phone is still ringing in his pocket.

(If it's Liam, he will legitimately destroy him.)

Louis' voice is shaky as he comes up to his friend. "Niall?"

"Ngggh." There's a ding from his back pocket, letting everyone know he's missed the call.

Louis holds out a hand, and Niall wants to slap it away like a child, because he's fine. He gets up slowly, but his back hurts almost as much as his ego right now, and he hears Cal disguise a small laugh as a sniffle. He decides he actually quite hates Cal.

"I'm fine, Lou."

With an almighty frown, Niall pulls his phone and sees who the call was from.

"Your boyfriend," he mutters. Louis suddenly forgets his best friend has just fallen fifteen feet onto straight wood and widens his eyes to a near comical size.

"Was it! Call him back, tell him to audition! Call back!" But Niall just shoves the phone at him because he can't deal with this right now.

"You call him," is all he says, before dusting himself off and sending a death glare towards a suddenly morose Cal.

"What if he asks for you?" Louis whispers, suddenly paranoid and staring at the phone like it's a grenade. "What if he doesn't even want to talk to me?"

"I literally don't care, Lou." Niall pats his friend on the back and walks straight out of the theatre.

 

-

 

Louis called him back. Of course he did. And of course he roped Niall into his plan to seduce Zayn, which he'd cleverfully disguised as a plan to seduce Harry.

There's no Harry in the plans. Duh. He's talking about Louis here. Of course the plan was entirely more complex and confusing than he'd given him credit for. It wasn't even a plan for Niall. Niall Horan is a literal side story in Niall Horan's own fucking love story.

"Niall?" Niall Horan the sidekick wonder looks up from where he was picking at the muddy grass on the quad and sees Zayn looking at him with big nervous eyes. "Was that okay?"

"Sorry," he grumbles, dusting the grass with now ripped up bits of other grass. "Just a bit distracted." The sun is beating down hard on Niall's back, his English books and laptop scattered around him and mostly ignored, and Zayn is pacing in front of him, rubbing his stubble and muttering something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like Shakespeare.

"You mind if I run it through with you one more time?" Zayn asks him hesitantly, watching as Niall rips up another few blades of grass.

He's been doing it for the past hour while Zayn's been practicing for him. He hadn't realized it would be so therapeutic and so sufficiently distracting from Jacobs' essay as it is, but. Procrastination can take any form.

Zayn, on the other hand, is looking like he's in a minor panic that is only visible through his eyes, and Niall finds it a little bit strange and quite a bit amusing. In the few times he's met the guy, he'd only ever been chilled out and a little bit eccentric. The panic is a new thing, but Niall can kind of guess why as he sees Louis sauntering  over the quad toward them, a satchel slung over his shoulder and a near predatory look on as he eyes the pacing black-haired boy.

"Zayn, I talked to you over the phone?" he asks, coming to a stop and popping out his hip a little. What a prick. "We met at that pub, The King's Head, the other night, yeah?"

Niall rolls his eyes. When Zayn doesn't answer, he looks up to see the boy's jaw is slightly slackened and unable to find a coherent response at the sudden Louis ambush. Niall very discreetly kicks Zayn in the shin and he comes to. "Yes! Yeah, yes, that was...that was me." Zayn has reverted into the ultimate nonchalant slouch, and Niall wants to laugh.

"Ready for the audition, then?"

Zayn can only nod with the faintest of blushes, and it only makes him more attractive, which Niall supposes is unintentional, but altogether good for the cause. "I'm. Yes. Yeah, well, I ought to practice a bit more, s'pose."

Louis laughs at this, touching his arm, and they fall into conversation, Louis all loud giggles and bumping of shoulders and elbows and Zayn all quiet laughs and nods and hands in pockets, most of which Niall happily tunes out. People in love. Gross.

He feels like a child. The ultimate third wheel. That could be his superhero name. Ultimate Third Wheel to the rescue, he's got snacks and a snarky attitude to boot! He laughs to himself.

He bets Harry would laugh at that.

Any boy who names a fake plant Hercutio or whatever he called it would definitely laugh at that.

Niall finds himself daydreaming about the plant-naming boy until Louis' flirtatious laugh brings him back to reality, and, ugh, they've both got rosy cheeks from talking to each other. He starts pulling at the grass again, slightly more aggressively. The Scarlet Letter is still being dutifully ignored beside him.

When Louis finally leaves, going on about some classwork he's got to finish -- bullshit, Niall knows he's not done homework in two years -- Zayn topples down beside him, his knees apparently too weak to support his weight.

"He's a genius," he breathes, staring up at the sky. "Louis Tomlinson is a creative genius. And he knows my name."

"He's a prodigy, all right," Niall mutters, flicking an ant off the cover of his book and frowning at its mere existence.

"He said not to tell anyone but that I've got a good chance for the lead. Can you believe that?"

Yes. Niall can't get the word out before--

"I've got to thank you for introducing me. I'll do something, what would you like?"

"Write this paper for me," Niall jokes, waving the book in his face. "I'd like an A, please. Might settle for a B. Remember punctuation."

There's a pause, which Niall doesn't entirely understand, until he glances at Zayn, who is currently splayed out rather listlessly on the ground, and sees he's cocked his head to the side, which...isn't good. Then he starts saying it, and Niall feels a tsunami of embarrassment wash over him.

"You'll say no to this," Zayn begins, "but hear me out, yeah? Our rent is...a bit high, see, this month. And it's really because he's been painting the walls again, because I asked our landlady and that's what she told me, and she doesn't want to kick us out because she fancies him but she still had to raise it..."

"Whatever it is, no." Niall refuses on all grounds to be babied into spending time with who he thinks Zayn he talking about. He is a Grown Man.

"He was going to pay it this month, see, but we both know he hasn't got the cash, and I've just got my paycheck from the restaurant so I'll just barely be able to pay it off this month, but, technically, he does owe me a favor for doing that."

"Zayn--."

"He did study English. He could've majored in it."

"No."

"He really is an incredible writer, you should see--"

"Zayn, that's nice of you, but I can't. I don't even really know the guy."

Finally, Zayn -- like _Niall's_ the one being difficult here -- rolls his eyes. "Just take the fucking offer, Horan. I'm thanking you."

Niall shakes his head. "I--."

But Zayn silences him with an annoyed raised eyebrow.

"Fine. But he might not even say yes."

"If it'll get him out of paying the rent for another month, I think he will."

With that, Zayn pushes himself off the ground and shakes his shoulders, and Niall doesn't hear the boy mutter something along the lines of, _especially if it means seeing you again._

"Right!" Zayn exclaims, rubbing his hands together. "Mind if I run through this one more time?"

 

-

 

So Harry thinks his plan may have ultimately backfired.

There’s a celebration in the restaurant downstairs because auditions are over and Zayn's got the lead (of course) and Louis Tomlinson couldn’t come as he’s got to get all the final spots in place but Niall is there instead, and Harry, of course, is sitting on his bed, alone, writing a dumb song about being bad at love.

Possibly with the door closed because it’s late and he didn’t want to watch (or hear) basically every good-looking person within a twenty mile radius fawn over Niall. It's when he's writing some really fucking deep line about the ocean -- fuck yeah, his judgment isn't influenced by the empty beer bottle beside him at all -- that he hears the apartment door creak open and some stifled giggles and shh’s and drunk stumbling.

Harry’s heart -- he’s stubborn about this -- definitely does not ache in the slightest when he hears the Niall boy’s voice sound about the same level of smashed drunk that he was when Harry first saw him.

(Harry knows this stupid feeling he’s got is all because Niall’s just been there increasingly often over the past week, working with Zayn on his audition, and is a little bit cute and nothing more, but it still kind of pisses him off. But he definitely doesn’t care, no no no no no no. No way. Niall’s business has got nothing to do with Harry’s business. He’s just the guy who let him crash for the night.)

He really wants to talk to him again.

“How long’ve you lived in Glasgow?” Slurred, happy. He hears it through the door. Definitely Niall.

Harry just knows that Zayn’s leaning forward to touch him when he answers, both of them falling into each other and smiling and stumbling together. Apparently they are by themselves. Harry does not care.

Zayn likes Louis Tomlinson and Niall doesn’t even like Harry anyway.

“Almost a year and a half, I think. From Bradford, originally. Harry came by, like, eight? Eight or nine months ago, in the band, and flat broke. He’s still flat broke,” Zayn snorts, which makes Harry go beet red behind his door and he’s not sure whether it’s from embarrassment or anger or possibly both, “but he’s a bit better off now. Sometimes he works part time in the pub with me, which is always a good day. More business, anyway, because the girls love him. If they only knew what he’s like…” Zayn trails off happily, which of course (Harry’s guessing from behind his door) means that they’re doing something a little more intimate than talking.

Which was a little fucking annoying because that was Harry’s story that Zayn was telling and his mate can’t just fucking use his life story to start a hook up with the guy that Harry had originally brought home.

(Even if he hadn’t brought him home in, like, that way. Shut up.)

“Not much of a band, though,” Niall bumbles after a few excruciatingly painful seconds of Harry not knowing what was going on. Harry stuffs his head back into his book and tells himself that this isn’t really bothering him.

Because it isn’t.

He doesn’t care. Niall’s not that much of a catch. He’s got other people, some other girls vying for his attention down at the pub, even a few well-appreciated guys. His one girlfriend from uni messaged him the other day asking to meet up. He _knows_ there are more than a couple people who’d like to get in his pants. So Niall is unimportant, relatively speaking. Niall. Niall Niall Niall Niall.

Niall’s still talking.

“I mean, Harry and that drummer? Josh? They’re good, like, really good, but they need a bassist, or like, umm…” And then there’s silence for a couple more seconds, and Harry is one hundred percent ignoring the thing that’s building and building and building in his chest.

Zayn’s voice now. The building sensation lessens a little, but now Harry’s searching for his headphones somewhere in the depths of his sheets to block out the noise of their goddamn drunken bonding session.

“No, there’s this other guy. Michael.” Their words are whispered, close and intimate, and Harry thinks he might punch a wall. Such girls. Why do they even bother. Just fucking get on with it already, just go and do whatever they’re going to do, just fucking fuck and leave Harry in peace. He doesn’t need this.

“He’s cool,” Zayn’s still saying about Michael. “But never comes around, though. Always with his girlfriend. Always…kissing…”

And then Harry’s up and off his bed and across the room, opening the door with an entirely fake grin plastered on his face before he even realizes what he’s doing.

“Hi, pals!” he exclaims in that sort of thick sarcasm where you’re not even entirely sure if it’s sarcasm anymore, looking brightly at both of their drunken, confused faces and pretending like he doesn’t feel a sort of pull when he sees how befuddled Niall clearly is. “Having fun?”

He’s speaking a bit quicker than normal, a bit rushed, like he’s not thinking about what he’s saying. Which he probably isn’t. He tries to control it.

Zayn glares and moves away from Niall’s lips, which he’d definitely been closing in on, Harry just knows, and instead slings an arm around his waist and pulls him to his side. “Yeah, you should try it sometime, Haz. Instead of sitting in your room moping all night.”

Harry’s been around Zayn enough to know that there are phases to his drunkenness -- there’s placid, happy Zayn, and then -- yeah. Judging by the narrowed eyes, he seems to have just triggered I’ll-be-mad-at-anything-just-try-me Zayn.

Harry’s learned to ignore this, because it passes relatively quickly, and so turns instead to Niall.

“So, Niall, right? I guess you’re staying tonight? Brilliant, I’ve got the full mattress. Zayn’s just got a twin, so you can stay in my room if you want, and I’ll let you borrow my clothes again, if you need them--.” He stops when he sees his flat mate ignoring him entirely and trying to pull Niall away to his own room.

Also, he was starting to speak all fast again and he really hates it when he does that because it never ends well and he always ends up looking stupid. Like right now. He just invited him to sleep in his bed again, what the fuck was that about?

“Actually,” Niall says, jerking out of Zayn’s grip with a little more awareness than he should. (What Harry doesn’t know is that he’s honestly not that smashed drunk and had really just let Zayn take him up here because he had kind of maybe wanted to see Harry, and when he’d thrown the door open a couple seconds ago his heart kind of did a back flip.) “Actually, Zayn, I think, erm, do you think maybe that’s a good idea?”

“A good idea? What’s a good idea?”

“Me. Staying with…know what, never mind, I can just, maybe, go.”

“Nooooooo, stay,” Zayn groans, reaching idly for his hips again. He whispers silently in Niall’s ear that he needs him to help him out with Louis, but Harry doesn’t hear. It just looks very compromising.

Niall bites the inside of his lip when Zayn whispers into his ear, and Harry goes red. He tries to breathe and remember to calm down.

He doesn’t calm down. His face just sets into an angry frown. The one his mother always told him made him look like grumpy cat.

He notices Niall register his expression, and suddenly the boy’s face is mirroring it. It's quite cute, actually, he thinks, before remembering that he doesn't care.

“Z, go to sleep,” Harry sighs when Zayn tries again to pull Niall away. “You’re drunk.” Putting a steady hand on his friend’s shoulder, Harry leads him firmly across the small kitchen and to his bedroom. “See you in the morning, yeah?”

There’s a couple mumbled arguments from him, mostly pouts and ‘but I’m not tired,’ but he’s honestly too out of it to put up much of a fight.

And then the door is closing and it’s just Niall and Harry in the kitchen. Harry doesn’t even remember why he came running out of his room in the first place. If Niall had been planning something with Zayn, that was none of his business -- it actually has nothing to do with him, anyway. (But, Jesus, he’s still fucking annoyed right now. If it weren't for Niall's cute angry face right now.)

“Well,” Niall says. “I ought to go.”

“Do you even have money to get home?”

At this, Niall genuinely looks about ready to punch him once he seems to realize that, no, he does not even have money to get home. “No.” He refuses to look Harry in the eye. “But I can walk.”

“Don’t, you may as well just stay.” Why did he say that.

"Are you sure?"

Don't say yes. "Yes."

“So, erm. I guess I’m in your room, then.”

Harry’s heart lifts three stories.

Niall spins around to fumble with the doorknob, but he accidentally catches his foot on his other foot and stumbles, and Harry doesn’t really have to catch him but he does anyway.

They both share an uncomfortable look at this, stopping for a second with Harry’s arm still wrapped around his waist, but then Niall’s getting up and closing the door behind him, and Harry’s left standing there alone. Staring at his own closed door.

He huffs and goes to get a drink from the fridge to calm his nerves before he goes back in there. There’s not much in the fridge but some leftover Chinese and Harry’s week-or-two old broccoli from that salad he never made for that health kick he never went on, but he fishes around behind the plastic take-home containers and grabs a bottle.

After a second’s hesitation, he grabs one for Niall, too, and cracks them both open.

A few minutes later, as Harry’s rummaging around their empty pantry for something passable to eat (he could go back to the pub and flirt with the barmaid until she gives him something for free but he’s honestly just too lazy), Harry kind of chokes on his beer and slams the cabinet shut because shit shit shit his song is laying out in the open in his room and they might have something to do with the boy who is alone in his room right now and why does Harry always forget important things like this.

So he’s scrambling with the door and hurrying in, Niall’s beer left forgotten on the counter, his socks slipping, ready to make any excuse necessary, to lie and act cool and calm and collected when Niall asks if they’re about him, because 'eyes as blue as the ocean' isn't exactly subtle, when he just finds Niall fully clothed on top of his sheets and snoring quietly.

He glances over at the end of his bed and sees the papers just where he left them. Harry closes his eyes, shuts the door behind him, and falls back against it.

Finally, he glances over to the boy on his bed, head tilted to the side, eyelids shut and eyelashes dusting pale cheeks, blonde hair knotted and pressed against the pillow.

Oh, crap.

He can’t even kid himself.

He likes this boy.

At least, he likes him enough to decide to sleep on the floor because Niall probably wouldn’t appreciate them sharing the bed again. Especially when he had been planning on doing that with someone else.

And he even decides he'll wake up early tomorrow morning and fix breakfast and then go out for the day so Niall won’t have to see his stupid face around.

Christ, he’s whipped. And he’s not even in a relationship with the fucker.

Harry rubs his hands across his face and pushes off the door, softly padding his way to the bed to pick up his book and unlace Niall’s shoes and toss them on the floor. Flicking off the little lamp and gently plucking up a spare pillow from beside Niall’s head, he chews on his lip and tries not to think about how in the hell he allowed this to happen.

Crap.

Crap crappity fucking shit crap. He likes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr!!](http://www.getyouwhateverthepayne.tumblr.com) pls talk to me omg


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